Weak Estate Tax Could Derail Tax Deal

By Ashlea Ebeling
Posted on Forbes.com, December 10, 2010

Members of the fair tax movement are outraged at the generous estate tax provisions in the Obama/GOP tax deal and are calling on Congress to strengthen it so it hits more estates. Rather than reinstating the estate tax at 2009 levels (a 45% top rate and $3.5 million per person exemption) as was expected, the deal sets the top rate at 35% and raises the exemption to $5 million. So a couple could leave $10 million to heirs without worrying about the federal estate tax.

“It’s obscene and unnecessary, and it benefits no one but a handful of heirs of rich parents,” stated Mike Lapham, director for United for A Fair Economy’s Responsible Wealth project, in a release today calling for stronger tax provisions in the deal, and applauding House Democrats for their commitment to strengthening the plan. “The estate tax is reason enough to reject the deal,” Lapham said.

Responsible Wealth has been fighting for a fair estate tax for 10 years, ever since the Bush tax cuts started gradually weakening the tax, ending with repeal for 2010. (If Congress does nothing, the estate tax is set to return on Jan. 1 with a $1 million per person exemption and rates of up to 60%.) High-profile signers of Responsible Wealth’s “call to preserve the estate tax” include Forbes 400 members David E. Shaw, Julian Robertson, Jr., George Soros, John Sperling, and Ted Turner. All six children of David Rockefeller, the oldest Forbes 400 member, have signed too.

Last month Responsible Wealth gathered millionaire and multi-millionaire signers of the call who are small business owners and entrepreneurs to speak out on why they support a strong estate tax. [...]

Read the full post on Forbes.com.

December 8, 2010

Dear Senators and Representatives:

The undersigned organizations urge you to establish a robust estate tax during the current lame duck session of Congress.  Within the next few weeks, the House will likely consider an extension of the Bush tax cuts; any package must include the permanent extension of a strong estate tax.

Americans for a Fair Estate Tax (AFET), a coalition of dozens of national and state organizations, has long advocated for a robust estate tax that can provide our nation with the desperately needed revenue to invest in priorities such as education, health and nutrition, and infrastructure.

We are told repeatedly, however, that increased investments in the American people are not affordable because the federal budget deficit is too great.  Yet, Congress has sharply decreased an important revenue source that can help fund these priorities and reduce the budget deficit.

The Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 set in place the gradual reduction and then temporary one-year elimination of the federal estate tax for 2010.  Unfortunately, we have already seen the revenue loss resulting from the one-year repeal.  In March, an oil and gas businessman in Texas became the first billionaire in United States history to pass along his entire estate – worth some $9 billion – without paying any federal estate tax.

President Obama recently endorsed a Bush tax cut extension compromise with Republicans that includes a weak estate tax.  With a $5 million exemption for individuals and a $10 million exemption for couples, and a tax rate of 35 percent, this proposal would severely undermine this fair and important revenue source.

The president originally proposed permanently extending the 2009 estate tax in his budget proposal this year.  With a $3.5 million exemption for individuals and a $7 million exemption for couples, and a tax rate of 45 percent, this proposal would be more than generous to the wealthiest among us and would not harm small businesses or family farms.

Restoring the estate tax to 2009 levels or stronger would affect only the wealthiest one quarter of one percent of estates and would bring in roughly $250 billion in revenue over 10 years.  The Brookings/Urban Institute Tax Policy Center estimates that in 2009, only 100 small businesses and small farm estates nationwide owed any estate tax, and those paid an average tax of only 14 percent.

Any proposal that grants a higher exemption level or a lower tax rate than existed in 2009 will virtually eliminate the estate tax and cost our nation much more revenue down the road.  Moreover, no proposal should provide a prepayment option or include an unlimited farm exemption, both of which would provide an unacceptable loophole and deprive the Treasury of much-needed federal revenue.

We support re-establishing a permanent robust estate tax because it serves these crucial purposes:

• The estate tax raises revenue that our nation needs to invest in the American people.  Continued repeal will deepen the budget deficit by roughly $800 billion between 2012 and 2021.

• Polls show a clear majority of voters want there to be an estate tax, believing that an exemption of between $2 million and $3.5 million is fair.  Voters continually place the estate tax at the bottom of the list of taxes the government should cut.

• Because the government does not tax assets bequeathed to a charity, the estate tax encourages charitable contributions.  This is especially important in light of the current economic downturn in which charities are struggling to continue providing vital community services.

• The estate tax functions as a backstop for the income tax, taxing capital gains that previously have not been taxed.  Over half the value of inherited estates is capital gains income that has never been taxed.  Most large estates include assets such as real estate, stocks or bonds.  Any increase in the value of these assets is capital gain income that would only be subject to the income tax if the assets were sold during the owner’s lifetime.

A robust estate tax must fairly tax wealth that might otherwise escape taxation entirely, preserve a system that ensures that the very wealthy pay their fair share, and maintain a structure that encourages charitable giving.

Sincerely,

On December 6, 2010, President Obama announced that he reached a deal with Republicans to extend the federal estate tax and other tax cuts.         

Under the deal, the estate tax exemption would be up to $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples. The tax rate would be 35%. The exemption and rate would be in effect for two years.        

This announcement only intensifies the estate tax debate.       

(1) Commenting on the President’s announcement, Lee Farris  (Senior Organizer on Estate Tax Policy, United for a Fair Economy) said, “This deal gives away too much and gets too little in return. This deal is unacceptable.”       

Lee explains why UFE finds the deal unacceptable:        

The proposed tax deal that further weakens the estate tax is outrageous.  The deal would make the estate tax even weaker than it was under President Bush, and the weakest it has been since the tax started in 1916.  The estate tax is our country’s most progressive tax, and our only tax on wealth.  Wealth inequality is already at the highest levels since 1928. A weaker estate tax will result in the richest 1% owning even more of our county’s wealth, and will shift the responsibility for paying taxes from the wealthy to the middle class.       

United for a Fair Economy’s members strongly support the estate tax, including business owners, farmers, and thousands of wealthy people who expect to pay the estate tax.  They all agree that the estate tax is the right way to have those who have benefited the most from our country’s government to give back so that our country prospers.        

Lee concludes by assuring that UFE  “is going to continue to fight hard for an estate tax at 2009 levels or stronger.”     

Read more on Hani Sarji's "Estate of Confusion" blog on Forbes.com

Obama tax deal a big gift for America's rich

By Joseph Giannone
Column appeared on Reuters.com, December 7, 2010

More than 40,000 ultra-rich Americans may have another reason to celebrate the holiday season if President Barack Obama's latest estate tax proposals are passed by Congress.

Obama struck an agreement on Monday with congressional leaders on a range of tax issues, including cutting the estate tax to 35 percent and raising the individual exemption to $5 million. The estate tax, which expired this year, is due to return in 2011 at 55 percent with a $1 million exemption.

If the compromise proposal is passed, roughly 40,700 families will avoid an estimated $23.2 billion of estate taxes next year, according to the Urban-Brookings Institute Tax Policy Center. Around 3,500 families would pay an estimated $11.2 billion in estate taxes.

"They're making the estate tax weaker than it has been for more than seven decades. This is a real mistake," said Lee Farris, who follows estate taxes for United for a Fair Economy, a group advocating progressive tax policy. "Obama also puts himself in a bad position to negotiate the tax in two years."

(emphasis added)

Obama agreed to extend all Bush-era tax cuts for two years, yielding to Republicans, who won big in mid-term elections. The preliminary agreement would renew tax cuts for the middle class, as well as the wealthiest Americans.

"You knew Congress was not going to let the Bush tax cuts expire. There are too many millionaires there," Ray Madoff, a Boston College law professor and expert on trusts and estates. "This helps an absolutely tiny, tiny portion of the wealthiest people who are passing billions to their heirs tax-free."

Tax experts now estimate that less than one in 400 families will pay the estate tax, the fewest since the Depression.

The estate tax was not the only gift for the wealthy in Obama's plan.

Read the rest on Reuters.com

Obama Confronts Democrats' Pushback Over Deal on Tax Cuts

By Ryan J. Donmoyer and Mike Dorning
Column appeared on Bloomberg.com, December 7, 2010

President Barack Obama confronted pushback from fellow Democrats today as he begins the job of selling his agreement with congressional Republicans to temporarily sustain all the Bush-era tax cuts.

After almost a week of negotiations between an administration team led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and budget director Jack Lew, Obama announced last night he’ll accept a deal that would extend current tax rates for high- income taxpayers for two more years in exchange for extending federal unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless and cutting the payroll tax by $120 billion for one year.

While Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell welcomed the compromise, Democrats said they haven’t committed to the plan and party activists mounted campaigns to kill it. Vice President Joe Biden is being dispatched to the Senate Democratic Caucus lunch this afternoon to lobby lawmakers.

“House Democrats have not signed off on this deal,” Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, a member of the House Democratic leadership, said today on Bloomberg Television. “I have some serious reservations.”

Obama said he made the compromise to break the stalemate over taxes to ensure rates don’t rise for middle-income Americans when the current ones, enacted in 2001 and 2003, expire on Dec. 31. He said that while he still believes the nation can’t afford to permanently extend the reduced top tax rates, raising taxes for the rest of taxpayers would damage the fragile economic recovery.

‘Collateral Damage’

Without the deal, middle-income families would become “collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington,” Obama said in televised remarks yesterday. He criticized Republicans for insisting on permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans “regardless of the cost of impact on the deficit.”

In addition to preserving the status quo on Bush policies, the proposal creates more than $300 billion in new tax cuts for wage-earners, wealthy families, and corporations.

Stocks rose, copper and gold climbed to all-time highs and Treasuries fell after word of the agreement, offsetting concern that Europe’s debt crisis will spread further.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index jumped 0.8 percent to 1,233.10 at 9:57 a.m., reaching its highest levels since September 2008. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.9 percent 2,617.71. The Dollar Index fell 0.3 percent. Copper rose to a 31-month high in New York and gold for delivery in February jumped to as much as a record $1,430.50 an ounce.

White House Meeting

Obama met yesterday afternoon at the White House meeting with Democratic congressional leaders to outline what he called a “framework” for compromise tax legislation.

Van Hollen characterized those discussions as “lively,” though “not overheated.”

Van Hollen said he understood that the president “doesn’t’ want to play Russian roulette” with the economy. Still, he said, “a number of us think there could have been a better result here.”

House Democrats will meet later today to air some of their concerns, he said. One of the sticking points is the provision that would set the top rate of the tax on estates at 35 percent, which applies after a $5 million tax allowance per individual.

“The question is, was that really necessary as part of this package,” Van Hollen said. “I’m not convinced it was.”

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California circulated yesterday, Representative Peter Welch of Vermont and at least five other Democrats urged her not to agree to the administration’s deal.

Resistance

“We support extending tax cuts in full to 98 percent of American taxpayers, as the president initially proposed,” Welch wrote. “He should not back down. Nor should we.”

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, was noncommittal.

“Now that the president has outlined his proposal, Senator Reid plans on discussing it with his caucus tomorrow,” Manley said.

McConnell, of Kentucky, said in a statement that he was “cautiously optimistic” that congressional Democrats “will have the same openness to preventing tax hikes that the administration has already shown.”

An administration official said the president was happy with the agreement because it would give the economy a boost.

Unemployment Aid

Obama won his biggest prize: a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The White House also counted as a win an agreement from Republicans to renew a refundable child-care tax credit, the earned income tax credit, tuition tax credits and a 2 percentage point reduction in payroll taxes, among other items, the official said.

The compromise amounts to a couple hundred billion in tax cuts that no one thought possible just days ago, the official said, adding that the deal will play better across the country than in Washington, D.C.

The Office of Management and Budget said it doesn’t yet have an estimated cost estimate for the package, spokeswoman Meg Reilly said in an e-mail.

Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington group funded in part by labor unions, said Obama extracted some concessions from Republicans that may help the deal advance in Congress.

Future Fight

“Economically, if you were going to do a deal, I think this is better than expected and will provide some help to the economy, but we need a lot more help,” he said. “I think people generally wanted to have a fight to show who was for the rich people and who was for the rest of us. That fight now will take place in the 2012 election.”

If Congress agrees, the deal would leave in place the 10, 15, 25, 28, 33 and 35 percent marginal tax rates created in 2001. It would also preserve for two years the 15 percent tax rate on most capital gains and dividends, and would temporarily index the alternative minimum tax for inflation.

In addition, the plan outlined by Obama would extend aid for the long-term unemployed for an additional 13 months. To help spur hiring, the payroll tax -- which funds Social Security and Medicare -- would be cut by 2 percentage points during 2011.

The payroll tax cut would apply to all wage-earners, an administration official told reporters on a conference call. That would be an $800 savings for individuals with an income of $40,000. Those who earn salaries of more than $106,800 would save a maximum of $2,136. The proposal would cost the government $120 billion, another administration official said.

Payroll Taxes

The 2 percentage point cut represents a savings of about a third on the 6.2 percent share of the tax workers normally pay. Their employers get no benefit under the proposal.

The unemployment rate rose to a seven-month high of 9.8 percent in November as payroll growth slowed to 39,000 from 172,000, according to the Labor Department.

The compromise plan would set the estate tax at a top rate of 35 percent, which applies after a $5 million tax-free allowance per individual. That rate would be the lowest since 1931 --not counting 2010, when the rate was zero and replaced with a complicated capital gains tax that applies when inherited assets are sold.

Lee Farris, who tracks estate tax policy for the liberal advocacy group United for a Fair Economy in Boston, called Obama’s acceptance of the 35 percent rate “inconceivable.”

“A weaker estate tax, coupled with the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, is only going to end in the richest 1 percent owning even more of our country’s wealth,” she said. (emphasis added)

Read the rest of this column on Bloomberg.com.

Among the wealthy, a new voice for fiscal sacrifice

By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Column published in The Washington Post, November 30, 2010

President Obama's discussion Tuesday with leaders of both parties about the expiring Bush tax cuts comes at a time when a growing chorus of progressives and other reasonable-minded Americans have been ramping up pressure on the White House to allow the cuts for millionaires to end - as intended - at the end of the year. Last week that chorus was joined by a group of unlikely, albeit welcome new singers: the millionaires themselves.

In a November letter to President Obama, a group calling itself Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength argued that the wealthiest Americans do not need, and should not be given, an extension on tax cuts that have done next to nothing to improve broad economic prosperity. "We are writing to urge you to stand firm against those who would put politics ahead of their country," the letter's authors write. "Now, during our nation's moment of need, we are eager to do our fair share."

Signers include a number of early Google executives as well as leaders of companies such as Ben and Jerry's, Men's Wearhouse and Princeton Review. They aren't the first group of ultra-wealthy people to signal discomfort with senseless fiscal policy designed to benefit the top 2 percent. A group of 700 business leaders and individuals known as Responsible Wealth have called the Bush tax cuts "irresponsible" and "downright inexcusable." Bill Gates Sr. and Warren Buffet, of course, have also called for a change in priorities.

For the most part, these are not the kinds of proclamations we have come to expect from America's rich. More often than not their views are distilled through megaphones such as the Chamber of Commerce, which wield outsized influence and use both foreign and national dollars to further the causes of the relative few. We have come to expect America's wealthy to stand behind the Republican Party - a party itself composed largely of millionaires in Congress - and to demand new income tax cuts, or corporate loopholes, or the end of the estate tax, even while they peddle faux concern about the federal government's long-term debt position.

Return of Estate Tax Looms as Final Impediment to Extending Bush Tax Cuts

By Ryan Donmoyer
Column posted on Bloomberg.com, Novmber 29, 2010

Ending the uncertainty over extending Bush-era tax cuts may rest on resolving a decade-long debate over death and taxes.

The federal levy on estates is set to increase the most of all as tax cuts expire Jan. 1, jumping from zero to 55 percent for fortunes worth more than $1 million at death. President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress barely mention it as they spar with Republicans over whether to keep income-tax reductions for top earners.

A new tax on multimillion-dollar estates may emerge as the final hurdle to a deal that preserves most or all of former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, analysts said. Congress has unsuccessfully sought at least a half-dozen times to resolve the issue since 2000, including an abandoned effort last December to prevent the estate tax’s expiration.

“The history on the estate tax is every time there’s almost an agreement someone leaves the table in the belief they’ll get a better deal next time,” said Clinton Stretch, a managing principal at the Washington consulting firm Deloitte Tax LLP.

With Obama planning to meet with bipartisan congressional leaders at the White House tomorrow, three main factions have formed in the Senate, none of which has the 60 votes needed to advance an estate-tax proposal. One includes Republicans such as South Carolina’s Jim DeMint who favor permanent repeal. Another is led by Democrats including Majority Leader Harry Reid who support a top rate of 45 percent that would apply after a $3.5 million tax-free allowance.

Moral Issue

A third faction, led by Arizona Republican Jon Kyl and Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln and embraced by Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, backs setting the top rate at 35 percent after a $5 million exemption.

Forging an agreement has proven more complicated than splitting the difference on the numbers because this has been cast as a moral issue, said Lee Farris, senior organizer on estate-tax policy for United for a Fair Economy, a Boston-based group that advocates reinstating the estate tax.

Opponents criticize the estate tax as an unfair levy that destroys family businesses while proponents of the tax, who include billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, view it as essential to preserving meritocracy in U.S. society. That argument has gained steam this past year with the deaths of at least five U.S. billionaires, including New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

“People are more dug in on their estate-tax positions on both sides than they are on the other positions,” Farris said. [...]

Read the full column on Bloomberg.com.

'Tax us' to ease deficit, say some wealthy Americans

Column by Agence France-Presse, November 25, 2010

With the US Congress hurtling toward a deadline on expiring tax cuts, a growing number of wealthy people are calling for higher taxes on the rich to help restore America's fiscal health. 

One effort gathered over 45 millionaires who signed an open petition calling for the end of the tax cuts adopted since 2001 on those with annual incomes exceeding one million dollars.

Tax breaks for the wealthy should expire "for the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens," the letter said. It was signed by Ben & Jerry's ice cream founder Ben Cohen, hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt and others.

Guy Saperstein, a retired California trial lawyer who organized the effort, said he was "frustrated" that President Barack Obama appeared to be wavering on his pledge to end tax cuts for the wealthy.

"I think the country's in trouble," Saperstein told AFP. "In hard times, the top strata who have done fabulously well need to sacrifice a bit, and it's not much of a sacrifice... We have among the lowest tax rates of any industrialized democracy."

Saperstein said an estimated 1,500 people have signed the letter although some of them did not want to be publicly identified on the group's website.

Philippe Villers, a French-born US businessman who founded Computervision in the 1960s and now heads Grain Pro, says he signed the letter even though it would mean higher taxes for himself.

"I don't think (extending the tax cuts for the wealthy) are fair or in the interest of building a strong economy," he said.

Villers argued that tax cuts enacted under former president George W. Bush gave a "disproportionate benefit to people with means" and contributed to the current economic woes.

Another 410 high-income Americans have signed a similar petition by Wealth for the Common Good, a network of business and civic leaders, calling for tax cuts to expire for families with incomes above 250,000 dollars.

"I've had a good run over the last few years. There's no question that others now deserve to share in that prosperity," said one of the signatories, Jeffrey Hayes, president of Stratalys Research & Consulting.

Similar comments have come from Warren Buffett, the investment guru who ranks among the world's richest individuals.

"I think that people at the high end -- people like myself -- should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it," Buffett said in an ABC News interview.

The efforts come with Congress struggling in the face of tax cuts expiring at the end of this year.

If no action is taken by December 31, the current top rates of 33 and 35 percent would return to pre-Bush levels of 36 and 39.6 percent for the richest Americans. But taxes would also rise on all Americans if Congress fails to act.

Many Republicans are pressing to extend the tax cuts to stimulate a wobbly economy.

Obama and his Democratic allies are urging extended tax cuts for all but the wealthiest two percent of Americans -- claiming this move would help raise 700 billion dollars over 10 years to ease a crushing deficit.

"I'm glad there is a group of people who are sticking out their necks to say, 'Tax me more,'" said Mike Lapham of United For a Fair Economy's Responsible Wealth project, which has recruited 700 people in high-income brackets to work for a more progressive tax structure. (emphasis added)

"People complain that the government should do more for New Orleans (after Hurricane Katrina) and for the (Gulf of Mexico) oil spill, but the reality is we've cut back on a lot of the things our government could do." [...]  

Read the rest of this column on BankokPost.com or Breitbart.com

November 19, 2010

UFE's Lee Farris joined Rick Smith – Pennsylvania talk show host and voice of the working class – to discuss the outright betrayal of struggling Americans by Congressional Republicans, who are holding unemployment benefits for millions of people hostage in their misguided push for permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Download an MP3 of Rick's interview with Lee Farris. (37.5 MB)

Estate Tax Teleconference - November 2010

On Tuesday, November 16, 2010, United for a Fair Economy brought together the voices of four American small business owners for a national press teleconference to discuss why the federal estate tax is important for small businesses. Our speakers shared personal stories, explained the facts and dispelled the myths about the estate tax. 

Click here for media coverage.

Our featured speakers:

• Dave Eiffert, Snoqualmie, WA (statement)
  Co-founder and Co-owner of Snoqualmie Falls Brewery, craft brewery and tap room.
• Jerry Fiddler, San Francisco, CA (statement)
  Principal of venture capital firm, Zygote Ventures, and Founder of tech company, Wind River Systems.
• Jean Gordon, Little Rock, AR (statement)
  Co-owner of Frostyaire of Arkansas, agricultural freezing and cold storage company.
• John Russell, Portland, OR (statement)
  Owner of Russell Development Company, real estate development.

Our speakers are joining us at a critical juncture for the estate tax. The window for legislative action creaks to a close with each passing day before the current law sunsets and reverts back to pre-2001 levels at the start of the new year. After sharing their statements in support of a robust estate tax, the speakers addressed questions from members of both mainstream and alternative media outlets. 

IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE PRESS OR A BLOGGER , and would like to speak with UFE staff or one of our guest speakers about the estate tax, please contact Maz Ali at 617-423-2148 x101 or [email protected]faireconomy.org.

For other inquiries regarding the estate tax, please contact UFE’s Senior Organizer on Estate Tax Policy, Lee Farris, at [email protected] or 617-423-2148 x133.

Thank you for your interest in this event.

"Dave Eiffert, a small business owner who has worked with United for a Fair Economy, said he hoped for a higher estate tax ceiling and deeper tax cuts for the middle class instead of tax cuts for those making $200,000 and more. Eiffert, co-owner of Snoqualmie Brewery in Snoqualmie, Wash., said he is below the $200,000 income level and is opposed to the notion that tax cuts to the wealthiest will trickle down to create jobs for others.

But Eiffert said it is not too late for the public to speak its mind on the various tax issues before the year comes to a close.'I always hold out hope until it is a done deal,' said Eiffert. 'I urge people to contact their legislators and tell them what they want done. And I hope there will be something better than what has been proposed.'"

Read the full column on ABCNews.com

December 10, 2010

Weak Estate Tax Could Derail Tax Deal

"'It’s obscene and unnecessary, and it benefits no one but a handful of heirs of rich parents,' stated Mike Lapham, director for United for A Fair Economy’s Responsible Wealth project, in a release today calling for stronger tax provisions in the deal, and applauding House Democrats for their commitment to strengthening the plan. 'The estate tax is reason enough to reject the deal,' Lapham said. [...]"

Read the full post by Ashlea Ebeling on Forbes.com.

November 29, 2010

Estate Tax as a Hurdle to Resolving Bush-era Tax Cuts

"Forging an agreement [on the estate tax] has proven more complicated than splitting the difference on the numbers because this has been cast as a moral issue, said Lee Farris, senior organizer on estate-tax policy for United for a Fair Economy, a Boston-based group that advocates reinstating the estate tax.

“People are more dug in on their estate-tax positions on both sides than they are on the other positions,” Farris said. [...]"

Read the full column by Ryan Donmoyer on Bloomberg.com.

November 19, 2010

UFE's Lee Farris joined Rick Smith – Pennsylvania talk show host and voice of the working class – to discuss the outright betrayal of struggling Americans by Congressional Republicans, who are holding unemployment benefits for millions of people hostage in their misguided push for permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Download an MP3 of Rick's interview with Lee Farris. (37.5 MB)

November 18, 2010

Estate tax: Some Small Businesses Glad to Pay

"What do an 84-year-old family-business matriarch in Little Rock, Ark., a beer brewer in Snoqualmie, Wash., a real-estate developer in Portland, Ore., and a Silicon Valley entrepreneur have in common? They’re all calling on Congress to extend the estate tax — even if it takes a bite out of what they leave their heirs. [...]"

Read the full article on WSJ.com

November 16, 2010

Estate Tax? Bring it on

Andrea Coombes, Personal Finance Editor of The Wall Street Journal MarketWatch blog, talks estate tax with Jerry Fiddler in this video interview. According to Fiddler, a wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur, because the strength of our educational systems and success of the private sector depend on public services, he considers it a point of pride – not pain – to be able to pay back into the public good.

Watch the interview on MarketWatch.com

November 5, 2010

OP-ED: I'm a Genetic Lottery Winner - Tax Me!

Responsible Wealth member, Judy Pigott, shares why she considers her good fortune a call to action to help protect the common good in the US, starting with preserving and strengthening the federal estate tax.

More >>