I have had the opportunity to meet with people from Alabama environmental experts who shared with me that with regard to landowners and timber owners, the estate tax is one of the single most damaging environmental pieces of legislation that exists. They tell me that routinely, people who inherit timber land and property who owe large amounts of taxes have to go out and prematurely clear-cut the timber on the property and sell it to pay the estate tax. You have to sell off the property or cut the timber every stick of it to pay the tax man in Washington. That is not good for families and for the environment. The estate tax hurts farmers.
Farmers are particularly property wealthy but cash poor.
They take what they have and plow it back into their land and equipment. When they die, they may have a very large tax burden. Perhaps they are making only a small amount on each acre they farm, but they are making an income from it. The farmers in this country are universally opposed to this tax. That is rotten and we need to get rid of it.