NB: This article was published on March 29, 2010 and contains information that may be outdated. For current information regarding the estate tax, read: Estate Tax Certainty…For Now.
According to a recent article in Bloomberg Business Week, the House Ways and Means Committee will begin work in April to retroactively revive last year’s estate tax, which exposed estates worth more than $3.5 million to a tax rate of up to 45 percent.
That’s good news because if Congress does nothing, the estate tax will return with a vengeance on January 1, exposing estates worth over $1 million to a tax rate of up to 55 percent.
Of interest was a suggestion by Sander Levin, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that:
[o]ne possibility being considered…would let heirs choose to pay the capital gains tax that replaced the estate levy if that is more beneficial.
I’ll keep you updated with further developments.
