The Bush legacy: Billionaire’s Bequest Is Tax-Free

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Estate Tax Dormant, Billionaire’s Bequest Is Tax-Free - NYTimes.com.

As the NYT notes:

A Texas pipeline tycoon who died two months ago may become the first American billionaire allowed to pass his fortune to his children and grandchildren tax-free.

When John D. Rockefeller, America’s first billionaire, died in 1937, his estate paid 70 percent.

Dan L. Duncan, a soft-spoken farm boy who started with $10,000 and two propane trucks, and built a network ofnatural gas processing plants and pipelines that made him the richest person in Houston, died in late Marchof a brain hemorrhage at 77.

Had his life ended three months earlier, Mr. Duncan’s riches — Forbes magazine estimated his worth at $9 billion, ranking him as the 74th wealthiest in the world — would have been subject to a federal tax of at least 45 percent. If he had lived past Jan. 1, 2011, the rate would be even higher — 55 percent.

Instead, because Congress allowed the tax to lapse for one year and gave all estates a free pass in 2010, Mr. Duncan’s four children and four grandchildren stand to collect billions that in any other year would have gone to the Treasury.

Which in the current context is a sick joke.

And an appropriate epitaph for George W Bush' s maladministration in favour of the rich.


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