Death, Taxes, and George W. Bush

[deadparrot]

The contrast in President Bush's new budget could not be more stark. On one hand, he wants to eliminate what he likes to call the "death tax" -- a levy imposed on a handful of the nation's biggest estates. On the other, he wants to end Social Security's lump sum death benefit -- a $255 check that the families of many of the nation's poorest use to help pay for their funerals.

There is a lot more in Bush's $2.77 trillion budget than that, of course. He'd boost spending for homeland security and the Pentagon, trim many popular domestic programs, and control the growth of Medicare by boosting premiums for high-income seniors and freezing or cutting payments for health providers, such as doctors, hospitals, and hospices. At the same time, the President asked Congress to make most of his first-term tax cuts permanent.

ESTATE PLANNING. That includes permanently eliminating the estate tax, or what conservatives like to call the death tax. Like most of what happens these days in the tax world, the story is complicated, but it goes like this: Starting in 2001, Congress began to gradually increase the size of an estate that would be exempt from tax. By 2009, estates of $3.5 million or less ($7 million for a couple that does the smallest bit of planning), would be tax-free. By 2010 all estates would be exempt from the tax, but only for one year.

So President Bush wants to permanently free all estates from the tax starting in 2011. The estimated annual cost: in excess of $50 billion in 2012, rising to more than $70 billion by 2016.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/nf20060288543db016

[oneighty]

1. Death tax!

The high cost of funerals is sort of a death tax.

This Friday on CBS news they will talk about do it yourself funerals. Do it yourself funerals would be a great thing; a good way to pass the funeral money to one's family instead of to undertakers.

Just like the old days.

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