Congress Acts In the Nick of Time
Last night, the House of Representatives passed a large tax bill, which includes a provision that sets the estate tax exemption level at $5 million and a 35 percent tax rate for the next two years. The Senate passed this same bill on Tuesday, and we expect the President to sign the bill into law in the next few days. Had Congress not taken action, the estate tax levels would have reverted back to 2001 levels in 2011, a high tax rate of 55 percent and a lower exemption level of $1 million.
We have been pushing for months to urge Congress to fix the estate tax for America’s family forests. Tree Farmers sent more than 1000 letters and emails to Capitol Hill, and several Tree Farmers met with their members of Congress in Washington, D.C. to talk about the estate tax in May and in December.
We also ran ads about the estate tax in several key Congressional districts and launched a video on www.familyforestaction.org. This lower tax rate and higher exemption level will help many family forest owners, who may unfortunately face the estate tax in the next two years, keep their forest as forest and land in the family.
While the 2-year fix to raise the exemption level to $5 million and lower the tax rate to 35 percent is a good start, in the next year, we’ll also continue to work to get Congress to pass a long-term solution to fix the estate tax for family forests.
Comments:
-
Beverly DuhrMy husband and I have a small farm in the forestry program, but if something happens to us our children will not be able to pay the taxes and continue what we have been doing on our farm. It isn't right that those taxes have to be paid for inherriting a family farm that is in the forestry program. This is the farm that I grew up on and I feel my children should be able to inherrit it without paying the inheritance taxes for the forestry.