This bi-monthly newsletter is being produced by the Seattle Times for family owned newspapers. Please share it with other family businesses in other industries. Any suggestions for distribution or content will be greatly appreciated.

The Death Tax is Killing Family Owned Businesses

Family owned newspapers are an endangered species. In 1910 there were 2,100 independently owned newspapers in the United States. This number dropped to 700 in 1980 and today stands at only 300 out of 1500 daily newspapers. The primary source of this decline is the estate tax which creates a crisis of liquidity and prevents the continuation of most family businesses.

Current tax policy drives the ever increasing consolidation of newspapers into a handful of faceless public corporations. It is important to even the playing field and to give the independently owned company a fair chance to compete.

• Repeal of the Estate Tax is a real possibility. The key is education and interest.
• Education is necessary because many legislators simply don’t realize how onerous this tax is on the American economy and how it works against job creation.
• Interest is necessary because it will take a grass roots effort to kill this tax.
• Through this newsletter we will keep you up to date on our activities, alert you to current bills entering legislation to repeal or reform the death tax, and share with you the key messages to use when educating legislators and business leaders in your community.

Newspaper advertising and grass roots effort

At The Seattle Times we have two primary efforts underway:

First is the advertising program we started last year. Creating newspaper/print ads for anyone to use. Enclosed a fact sheet about advertising campaign and a copy of the advertisement that ran in over one hundred newspapers last year.

Second is a grass roots Chamber of Commerce effort; we are working with George Duff, retired Seattle Chamber of Commerce president.

Did you know?

The death tax brings in less than 1.1 percent of total federal revenues. And, it is estimated it costs the government 65 cents of every dollar raised for enforcement and compliance.