Working-class people pay payroll taxes every week, and for wealthy people that’s not how it works.”
One big advantage the current estate tax gives to wealthy heirs is in the treatment of capital gains, which are taxed at a rate of 0 percent for anyone in the 10
and 15 percent income tax brackets, 15 percent for most others, and 20 percent for anyone in the top 39.6 percent bracket.
“I think people wouldn’t be as happy by repealing the estate tax if the gift tax wasn’t also repealed,” said Ronald D. Aucutt, a partner
and co-chairman of the private wealth services group of the McGuireWoods law firm in Tysons Corner, Va. “That would make the repeal bittersweet and leave some people wondering if these folks they voted for really did what they promised.”
One longstanding criticism of the estate tax is that it can inflict harm on some family farms and businesses.
The Trump campaign’s website sketched out a plan that would replace the estate tax with a tax
on all capital gains held in an estate, with an exemption on the first $10 million of gains.
“The impact of the estate tax on family farms and businesses, especially with
an exemption of nearly $11 million a couple, has been overstated,” he said.
“It’s easy to say, ‘Repeal the estate tax,’ but it’s like squeezing a balloon,” said
Alexander A. Bove Jr., an author and estates lawyer with Bove & Langa in Boston.