Buffett: Tax my kin, please.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Warren Buffett has said it before and he's likely to say it again to Congress on Wednesday: He thinks the heirs of the wealthy should be taxed on their inheritance.


Buffett, one of the world's richest men and now its biggest philanthropist, has been an outspoken critic of efforts to repeal the estate tax and is scheduled to testify at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on how current law affects estate tax planning.


Estates worth up to $2 million this year and next will be exempt from federal estate tax, and portions of an estate above that amount would be taxed at 45 percent.
By 2009, the exemption level rises to $3.5 million, and by 2010 the estate tax will be repealed for one year.


Unless Congress changes the law, the tax will be reinstated in 2011, with an exemption level of $1 million and a top rate of 55 percent.


Those who support repeal say, among other things, that the estate tax is an unfair burden on family businesses and farms, the heirs to which may be forced to sell pieces of the business just to pay the estate tax bill.


Those who oppose repeal say it would be too costly for the government to give up the tax revenue and that there are already allowances for family businesses. They also argue that without an estate tax, the heirs of the wealthy are given an unfair advantage over everyone.


"Without the estate tax, you in effect will have an aristocracy of wealth, which means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity rather than merit," Buffett told the New York Times in 2001. "[Repeal would be like] choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics."



http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/13/pf/taxes/buffett_estate_tax/