BUFFETT URGES CONGRESS TO KEEP ESTATE TAX

From The New York Times:

Warren E. Buffett urged Congress yesterday to maintain the estate tax, saying that plans to repeal the tax would benefit a handful of the richest American families and widen income disparity in the United States.

Mr. Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, told the Senate Finance Committee that advocates of repeal were “dead wrong” to call the tax a “death tax.”

It would be more appropriate to call it a “death present,” Mr. Buffett, 77, said. “A meaningful estate tax is needed to prevent our democracy from becoming a dynastic plutocracy.”

Congressional Democrats are likely to seize on Mr. Buffett’s comments to bolster their argument that repeal of the estate tax amounts to a windfall for a few wealthy families. Republicans have pushed to eliminate the tax permanently or reduce the rate and exempt more estates by raising the value at which the tax takes effect.

Mr. Buffett said that in the last 20 years, tax laws have allowed the “superrich” to become richer.

“Tax law changes have benefited this group, including me, in a huge way,” he said. “During that time the average American went exactly nowhere on the economic scale: he’s been on a treadmill while the superrich have been on a spaceship.”

The chairman of the finance committee, Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said yesterday that fewer than 1 percent of United States households currently pay the tax. He said repeal lacked support in the Senate and the purpose of the hearing was to solicit ideas for replacing the shifting rules and uncertainty of the current system.