Fiscally, it is an IRS agent full employment program that punishes grieving families while providing minimal benefit to the government treasury after expenses and creating economic inefficiency and loss. Estate taxes affect nearly every American. In addition to the millions of Americans who are directly affected by the death tax, there are millions more who are indirectly affected as thousands of small businesses refuse to grow and invest in new jobs for fear of the devastating tax impact of a principle's death. Further investment is lost to the defensive measures businesses must employ to shield themselves from this devastating tax. Insurance premiums and planning costs typically cost tens of thousands of dollars annually representing lost revenues that are unrelated to business growth and job creation.
Estate taxes hurt small businesses, women and minorities.
61 percent of family business owners say that the payment of death taxes will limit their business growth while 13 percent say their growth will be impossible. Women whose life expectancy exceeds that of men are often left not only with the grief of a lost spouse, but with the painful burden of a death tax that threatens their children's security. The estate tax is particularly harsh on minorities whose families are now accumulating wealth for the first time and are typically building first generation businesses which are most vulnerable to collapse from the estate tax. This new entrepreneurial class is also less likely to be aware of the estate tax and typically has not planned for the estate tax liabilities. Estate taxes destroy the ability of family-owned businesses to be kept within the family and passed from one generation to the next.