Proposal to end estate tax creates questions and not that many answers.
The end of the estate tax has been proposed but that does not mean that is the end of the estate tax, according to Investment News in “Trump tax proposal leaves advisers in the dark on estate tax repeal.”
The biggest issue following President Trump’s proposal to repeal the estate tax is will it get passed in Congress.
Ordinary legislation requires 60 votes in the Senate to pass without a filibuster. It is unlikely that any large tax cut on the wealthy will be able to get those votes, since Democrats have vowed to block them.
The budget reconciliation process can be used, so that only 50 votes are needed to pass an estate tax repeal, but there are many restrictions on that process. The most important one is that anything passed must be revenue neutral, which means that any cuts have to be offset with tax increases elsewhere.
If the cuts are not revenue neutral, then the law must sunset after 10 years.
The estate tax would come back.
President Trump has previously proposed changing capital gains taxation to offset the estate tax repeal, but it is not known how much support that idea has in Congress. The estate tax repeal could be dropped for other priorities.
Reference: Investment News (April 27, 2017) “Trump tax proposal leaves advisers in the dark on estate tax repeal.”
