Friday, August 04, 2006

Democrats defeat minimum wage - estate tax package


The cynical GOP attempt to tie the minimum wage increase to a repeal of estate taxes and an override of state minimum wage provisions that benefited some workers was defeated in the Senate. This was another GOP budget busting measure taking hundreds of billions off of future government revenue. Business lobbyists had come on board this bill despite the very small numbers that benefit from an elimination of the estate tax.
The CBO report found that if the current exemption level of $2.0 million had been in place in 2000, only 123 farm estates and only 135 family-owned businesses nationwide would have owed any estate tax. The number of taxable farm estates drops to 65 nationwide at a $3.5 million exemption level, the level that takes effect in 2009. The number of taxable family-owned business estates falls to just 94 under the $3.5 million exemption.

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