"Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Tiger Management LLC Founder Julian Robertson and an heir of Walt Disney urged Congress to reinstate a tax on multimillion-dollar estates, possibly retroactively.

The three were joined by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka today to support efforts by a Boston-based advocacy group, United for a Fair Economy, pressing lawmakers to act before Congress adjourns for a month-long recess in August.

The deaths of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and at least three other billionaires this year has focused attention on the absence of the levy, which lapsed Jan. 1. Had they died in 2009, they would have paid as much as 45 percent on much of their estate, depending on how their wills were structured.

“We should restore the estate tax in its entirety, and restore it now,” Rubin, who was Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, said on a conference call with reporters. He said making the tax retroactive to cover all of 2010 “should be very seriously considered.”

In 2001, Congress passed legislation phasing out the estate tax over the following decade and eliminating it for 2010. Unless Congress acts, the levy is scheduled to return in 2011, with a top 55 percent rate that would apply to amounts of taxable estates that exceed $1 million. [...]"

Read the full article by Ryan J. Donmoyer on Bloomberg.com.