These small estates sometimes are forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to comply with a tax that they don't even owe. No wonder estate lawyers and tax accountants love this tax. Failing to Break Up Concentrated Wealth Defenders of the tax argue that its costs are worth absorbing because it helps break up hoards of wealth accumulated by those few whose fortunes come by birthright, not by hard work or individual initiative. The wealthiest families tend to invest heavily in estate tax planning that inoculates them from paying this tax at all. For example, two of America's wealthiest families, the Kennedys and the Rockefellers, have paid very little estate tax over the past several generations, thanks to careful and clever estate planning by hordes of lawyers and accountants.
Statistics show the medium-sized estates to be the most heavily and adversely impacted.
A recent study estimates that two-thirds of the wealth of the nation's richest families goes untaxed. It's quite possible that death tax repeal is now the most popular public policy issue in America - outpolling even prescription drug benefits for seniors and education reform as a priority issue for Congress. A September McLaughlin poll found that 83 percent of voters believe the death tax is unfair and only 10 percent think it is fair. Congress and President Bush must recognize that the ideal solution to restore tax fairness is to eliminate the tax entirely and immediately, as Rep. Chris Cox of California has proposed. Once a hated tax is completely extinguished, the chances of its being reimplemented are remote.