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This bill — the For the 99.8% Act — would enact a progressive tax on the estates of the wealthiest Americans and lower the exemption threshold from the estate tax (aka the “death tax”). It would allow estates below $3.5 million per person ($7 million per couple) to pass without the inheritance tax while enacting a sliding tax scale on inheritances over $750,000. This tax scale would have five tiers, increasing the tax rate as the inheritance amount increases. Under current law, individuals can leave up to $11.4 million to heirs through their estates before the money is taxed and amounts above that level are taxed at a 40% tax rate.

Under this bill, the following sliding scale for estates would be enacted:

Estates over $750,000 but not over $3.5 million: tax of $248,300 plus 39% of the excess of the amount over $750,000.
Estates over $3.5 million but not over $10 million: tax of $1,320,800 plus 45% of the excess of the amount of $3.5 million.
Estates over $10 million but not over $50 million: tax of $4,245,800 plus 50% of the excess of the amount over $10 million.
Estates over $50 million but not over $1 billion: tax of $24,245,800 plus 55% of the excess of the amount over $50 million.
Estates over $1 billion: tax of $546,745,800 plus 77% of the excess of the amount over $1 billion.

This bill would also reduce the gift tax exclusion amount to $1 million and increase the value limit for land subject to conservation easements to $2 million. It would also eliminate the generation-skipping transfer tax exemption for certain types of trusts.

Finally, this bill would simplify the gift tax exclusion for annual gifts to make the first $10,000 of any gifts made in a calendar year tax-free. This would include 1) a transfer in a trust, 2) a transfer of an interest in a passthrough entity, 3) a transfer of an interest subject to a prohibition on sale, and 4) any other property transfer that can’t immediately be liquidated by the recipient.

To protect family farms, this bill would allow them to lower their assessed value on farmland by up to $3 million.

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Should the 'Death Tax' Have Progressive Brackets & Apply to More Americans?