The 1% Split Over Estate Taxes

The 1% Split Over Estate Taxes: "The 1% Split Over Estate Taxes
The Few at the Top of the Heap Disagree on How to Keep the Most

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 12, 2005; Page D01
The very rich and the merely rich are fighting over the fate of the estate tax.
So far, the very rich are winning.

Small-business owners -- the merely rich -- want to exempt from taxation inheritances of up to $10 million. The very rich -- people whose estates are worth tens of millions or even billions of dollars -- want instead to reduce the tax rate on assets passed on at death. A $10 million exemption isn't nearly enough for them."