If Hillary Clinton wins the election, a lot of bad things will happen on taxes, not least of which is a big hike in the death tax. Hillary wants to apply the death tax to smaller estates and raise the tax rate to 45%, which means that when you count the state estate taxes, the government will take more than half of many ranches, farms, and businesses. Apparently, this will ring the bell for tax fairness.
It gets worse. The Obama administration doesn’t even want to wait for the election in November. The Wall Street Journal reports this week that Obama is seeking a “stealth death tax increase” by using its executive authority to change the death tax rules. As the Journal explains:
The American SpectatorTreasury Secretary Jack Lew is up to his usual tricks, trashing established interpretations of tax law to bypass the legislative branch. Not even Mr. Lew has the gall to claim he can raise the federal death-tax rate of 40% without congressional approval. So the game here is to contrive ways to expose more of the value—or imagined value—of an estate to IRS revenue collectors.Last month Mr. Lew’s Treasury announced a proposed rule to close what it calls an estate and gift tax “loophole.” Until now, the IRS permitted realistic values for portions of closely held corporations and partnerships.
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