Congressman Mike Conaway - 11th District of Texas

Contact: Anna Koch 202.225.3605

Washington, Jun 22, 2006 - Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Permanent Estate Tax Relief of 2006. The bill would permanently reduce the Estate Tax, often referred to as the ‘Death Tax.’

“While I would prefer a full repeal of the Death Tax, this bill is a good first step toward lowering the excessive tax burden that Americans face in life and in death,” said Conaway, a CPA and member of the House Agriculture Committee. “Taxing death is not good public policy. Too many small businesses and family farms have gone out of business due to the forceful, outstretched hand of the federal government.”

The Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act of 2006 was passed with bipartisan support. Under current law, in 2011, the Death Tax is scheduled to return to its previous levels of a 55 percent top tax rate and $1 million exemption. This new legislation will increase the exemption amount to $5 million per person and would reduce the rate of tax on estates up to $25 million to the much lower capital gains tax rate. The compromise bill became necessary after the Senate failed to garner enough votes to bring a full repeal of the Death Tax to a vote.

Conaway went on to say, “Americans are taxed in every aspect of their lives and it is past time to draw the line. The Death Tax is an inherently wrong levy on those individuals who pay a large portion of the taxes in America. In many cases, they have already been taxed twice or even three times on their assets and I am disappointed that we could not get it fully repealed.”

Since 2001, the House of Representatives has voted to permanently repeal estate tax legislation five times including passage of the Conaway cosponsored H.R. 8 earlier this year. The compromise bill is an effort to enact serious change and move us closer to permanently eliminating the Death Tax in order to provide small business owners and farmers with certainty as they make estate planning decisions.