Contact Congress — Be Heard!

Take Action! by faxing, mailing or electronically submitting letters to your US Representative or US Senator today!

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Sample letters are available below. Please consider adding specific details describing your situation in dealing with or planning for the estate tax and how this affects your family business.

Sample Letter 1

Dear Representative/Senator _______ ,

The death tax, which is imposed by the federal government upon the death of the owner of a family business, hurts the family, the business, the employees, and the community in which it exists. It amounts to double taxation and at a rate that is triple that of the current capital gains rate. Often businesses must be sold or employees laid off to pay the tax. Furthermore,

  • The estate tax robs a business of working capital that could be used to expand and provide jobs.
  • The legal and accounting fees for estate planning and administration as well as insurance costs of estates also add to the tax burden.
  • When a family business must be sold to pay the death tax, often a large, non-family owned corporation will buy the farm or business and the effect on the community will be the potential loss of jobs and the loss of the benefits of having a local business involved in their community.

Family owned businesses generate about 60 percent of our gross national product and, in the last decade, accounted for an increase of more than 20 million private sector jobs.

Congress should repeal this confiscatory and destructive tax. American family businesses face an unreasonable and anachronistic federal estate tax. Please help to remove this disincentive to productivity and growth during this Congress!

 

Sample Letter 2

Dear Representative/Senator _____ :

This letter is to implore you to permanently eliminate the current estate, gift and generation-skipping tax laws, now referred to as the "death tax" as soon as possible. Since the current repeal does not occur until 2010 and then only occurs for one year, my family and I cannot plan for any reduction or elimination of this death tax. Some of the reasons that I believe this tax is unfair and should be eliminated are:

1) It is the highest rate of tax in our tax code [47%]
2) It is taxed on families at the worst time, at the time of a death in the family
3) It is a tax on assets that have already been taxed-at least twice
4) It is a tax on savings instead of spending
5) You should not have to pay a 80% tax to gift to your grandchildren.

I encourage you to support any legislation that supports permanent elimination of the death tax, which means the gift, estate and generation-skipping tax.[ Insert Personal Story] I realize that we are in times of budget deficits, but families work hard and need help now. We cannot wait to plan our deaths, so please don't wait to eliminate the death tax.

Please e-mail us with your comments, death tax horror stories and suggestions on-line at feedback@deathtax.com.

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