Nation's Building News Online

Congress Votes for ‘No Taxation Without Respiration’

The nation's home builders applauded the House's passage last week of H.R. 8, the “Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2003,” noting that a permanent repeal of the tax would be a help to small, family-owned businesses.

Under the current law, which was enacted in 2001, the estate tax is being gradually phased out until it disappears entirely in 2010. But it comes back to life in 2011, when the entire estate tax cut sunsets.

While reductions in the tax are welcome, builders would prefer no death tax at all and many are saying that the scheduled cuts in the tax over this decade make planning their estates more difficult. If they don't keep up with changes in the schedule, nearly half of their estates can be lost to federal taxes after they die.

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Jerry Howard, executive vice president and CEO of NAHB, said that the estate tax “has placed a burden on the heirs of family-run home building companies,” and he added that some business heirs even have to liquidate company assets to pay for the tax.

“The death tax is a threat to the future viability and growth of family-owned businesses,” Howard said.

He said that the issue is of particular importance to the housing industry, which is comprised largely of small businesses, and that NAHB will be encouraging the Senate to pass similar legislation.

To read the legislation, click here, and type H.R. 8 in the box at the upper left.
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