For old, sick, rich is 2010 year to die?

Plain Talk By Al Neuharth, USA TODAY Founder

If you're old and/or sick and have some valuable stuff in your estate, it might be a little less painful for your family — at least financially — if you die in 2010.

The death tax, a double dip on earnings on which you've already paid an assortment of taxes, expires today (Dec. 31). That's a law passed by the Bush administration in 2001. But Congress now threatens to bring it back from the grave.


In anticipation of the long-awaited death of the death tax, some at-risk people postponed some things until 2010. I know one person (me) who delayed until next week elective knee surgery (on both knees) that doctors recommended several years ago.

The odds are against my demise from that now rather-common surgery. But I decided to wait because I've carefully planned how to preserve in every way possible as much as possible of my little nest egg, not just for my wife but also for my eight children and two grandchildren.

My concern about the death tax is not just for my own family. Other examples:

• In my native state of South Dakota, I know many who had to sell the family farm to pay federal estate taxes.

• In my adopted state of Florida, many families owning small businesses have had to do the same.

Under the Bush law, the death tax has just a one-year hiatus. Unless Congress acts to preserve it, it will return in 2011 to the high 55% rate of 2001.

If Congress quit spending hundreds of billions trying to build nations in ungovernable places like Afghanistan and Iraq, we could afford to let our old or sick and well-to-do die without the additional suffering financially for their families.

Other views on the estate tax
"For the sake of families and small businesses across America, we can't let the estate tax go back into full effect, and yet as long as we are running huge budget deficits we can't afford full repeal, either."

— Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who introduced legislation to extend the estate tax

"The death tax should be abolished since it is immoral, but also because it double-taxes savings and investments, thus undermining growth and competitiveness."

— Dan Mitchell, senior fellow, Cato Institute

Posted at 12:17 AM/ET, December 31, 2009 in Forum commentary, Plain Talk, Taxes - Forum

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