Farms and the Estate Tax

By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi
According to this post, it appears that some are advocating Congress to exclude farms from the estate tax. Interesting? Would that be small farms, big ag farms? Ah, yes, the ever present question of definition in the law.

Still no firm answers on the estate tax, and the clock is ticking.

Comments

CJ said…
I have never understood why they exempt farms. Suppose you own some business worth 10 million dollars. It has to be earning around 1 million or so (very roughly) to be worth 10 million dollars. If for the foreseeable future it were only earning, say, $100,000, the owners would get more than that in a savings account w/o the risk of a business.

If that’s true, then the estate tax hits all businesses equally. It takes many years of profits to pay off the estate taxes.

Maybe they should make the law such that business valuation is determined by profits to protect unprofitable farms held of sentimental or environmental reasons.
December 14, 2009 at 9:20 AM
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