WASHINGTON – Congressman Connie Mack, FL-14, voted against the Democrats’ Permanent Estate Tax Relief Bill (H.R. 4154) Thursday, saying it would still hurt American small businesses and families. The legislation would make permanent this year’s $3.5 million per-person exemption and the 45 percent tax rate. The death tax is set to expire in 2010 and then would revert back to 2001 tax rate levels of 55 percent starting in 2011.
“The Death Tax unfairly punishes small business owners with double taxation and stifles economic growth and job creation,” said Mack in a prepared statement. “At a time… when unemployment is in the double digits, why are we continuing to overtax small businesses, which create the majority of new jobs in this country?
“Death shouldn’t be a taxable event. Americans who have worked their whole lives to pass down the fruits of their labor should not have to pay an estate tax.
“Instead of raising taxes on hardworking Americans with this sham legislation – which isn’t even indexed for inflation, meaning it will hurt more and more families in the future – we should enact sensible, free-market, pro-growth solutions that will get our economy moving again. And we can start by eliminating the Death Tax once and for all.”
Mack is an original cosponsor of the Death Tax Repeal Act (H.R. 205), which would repeal the estate tax altogether.

Source: Office of Connie Mack