Brenda wrote: > The Chicago Daily Defender, one of the oldest black daily newspapers in the > country, went into bankruptcy because of the burden imposed by the estate tax.
This simply is untrue. Totally untrue. The Defender has had a long struggle with financial problems, as have many African American papers, that had nothing to do with the estate tax. Gees. The ad base and circulation bases have been decreasing steadily because of the increased coverage of black communities by established "majority" papers. Plus, and this is very true in the Defender situation, the probate problems are very complex, many heirs, who has the controlling interest, long standing family problems, and what was set up in what trust, but the probate problems have nothing to do with the estate tax. Nothing at all. I should also add that I work in probate, probably 40% of my day is on probate cases, and I have done probate and financial planning for 15 years. We have never had one, again, not one case where there has been a federal estate tax paid, and I live in an area where there are large family farms. With the marital tax deductions and all the tax planning mechanisms out there, the estate tax is a rarity and paid by the very rich, the very few. And I invite anyone to attend with me the next year's worth of seminars that I will attend sponsored by PESI, NBI, Michigan's state bar probate section, ICLE, and whatever else comes along - and show me where more than 1-2% of the population, the very richest, are subject the estate tax. Less oratory and polemic and more reality helps in these discussions. Vince
