Death Tax Newsletter

Special Issue — September 14, 1999

To: Pacific Northwest Family Owned Daily Newspapers

cc:

Return to Reality

After spending the month of August out of the office, I am back in the office fully focused on the newspaper and major issues, and yes, the first priority is death tax repeal.

Death Tax Repeal Status

Having death tax repeal end up in the tax package is phenomenal. There are precious few people on Capitol Hill who gave us any chance of having this happen.

At the risk of over-simplifying, we achieved this by:

1. changing the message to a public policy economic jobs-impact message;
2. educating Hill members about this misunderstood tax — that it doesn't raise revenue and how destructive it is,
3. the broad-based grassroots persistence that continues to grow across the
country.

The popular wisdom is that the president will veto the tax bill and then the Hill and the president will negotiate. It is essential that we continue our drumbeat so that death tax repeal is included in the final bill that the Hill and the White House negotiate.

Now is the time to redouble all of our efforts and contacts. It is equally important that Republicans and Democrats continue to hear how important this repeal provision is.

Amazingly, because of our education efforts and because death tax repeal is only about 10% of the tax bill, there is almost no demagoguery from Democrats. This is a major success and very important even for Democrats that aren't supporting repeal.

Background Article

Enclosed is an article from of Fortune magazine. Written by N. Gregory Mankiw, who is a Harvard economics professor and the author of the book Principles of Economics, and a past classmate of Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

Jill Mackie and Suzanne Dorris

Suzanne Dorris has been on loan to me from The Seattle Times' Marketing Department. Her work on estate tax repeal, the newsletter, website, the ads, and much more, has been remarkable. Suzanne has been a key reason for our success.

It is time to let her move on to her real job in our Marketing Department. She will continue to help with advertising, transition and promotion, but the lion share of our work will now be done by Jill Mackie.

Most recently, Jill served as vice president/government affairs and human resources for the Pacific Lumber and Shipping Company in Seattle. Prior to that, she served as a government affairs representative for the company. Jill has more than 10 years experience working with government and public affairs and holds a BA in Sociology from Seattle Pacific University where she minored in Business and English Literature.

I met Jill several years ago when her then boss, Bob Spence of Pacific Lumber, and Ted Natt approached me to work on death tax repeal.

Conclusion

We are very close to a success that was believed unattainable. Without your support and enthusiasm we wouldn't be where we are today. Please keep up the energy!

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.
• The death tax is a jobs issue.
• Repeal of the tax would result in 145,000 new jobs over the first 9 years of repeal.
• And that doesn't include the countless jobs that would be saved if the death tax didn't force 70% of family and small businesses to liquidate or sell out after only one generation.
• 99% of all private businesses have fewer than 500 employees. This represents 50% of all private sector jobs which generate 50% of all revenue.
• 77% of the American voters polled by the 60 Plus Association indicated that they would be "more likely" to vote for their member of Congress if he or she voted 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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