mnbasketball
Member
- Mar 4, 2011
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Did you know that it's close to 60% of wealth passed on has never been taxed?
Did you know that 18 of the 25 richest families have spent 500 million trying to get rid of this tax that few people ever come into play on?
well you read it and notice one name at the top.
These include:
• The owners of the first-and-third largest privately held companies in the United States
(conglomerate Koch Industries Inc. and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms); 7
• The family that owns more than 40 percent of the stock in the world’s largest retailer,
Wal-Mart;8
• The owner of the company that makes Gallo wine and the Dorrance family, which holds
more than a 40 percent interest in the Campbell Soup Company;9 and
• The wealthiest family in the state of Alabama.
Members of a handful of super-wealthy families have quietly helped finance and coordinate a
massive campaign to repeal the estate tax.
These families – the members of which own the first and third largest privately held companies
in the United States and hold about a 40 percent share in the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart –
stand to save a whopping $71.6 billion if their bid succeeds.
They have relied on their fortunes, the resources of their companies and their business
connections to marshal a massive anti-estate tax juggernaut that has reported nearly a half-billion
dollars in lobbying expenditures ($490.3 million) since 1998.
The families also have helped finance outside groups that have spent millions on fear-mongering
ad campaigns intended to sway public opinion against the estate tax. These ads have shamelessly
retailed myths that the estate tax is responsible for wrecking small businesses and family farms,
and that regular Americans should fear a crushing tax bill when their loved ones die.
In fact, only about one-quarter of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006.
And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable in 2001 to
cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability – and
that was back when the exemption level was only a fraction of what it is today.
Did you know that 18 of the 25 richest families have spent 500 million trying to get rid of this tax that few people ever come into play on?
well you read it and notice one name at the top.
These include:
• The owners of the first-and-third largest privately held companies in the United States
(conglomerate Koch Industries Inc. and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms); 7
• The family that owns more than 40 percent of the stock in the world’s largest retailer,
Wal-Mart;8
• The owner of the company that makes Gallo wine and the Dorrance family, which holds
more than a 40 percent interest in the Campbell Soup Company;9 and
• The wealthiest family in the state of Alabama.
Members of a handful of super-wealthy families have quietly helped finance and coordinate a
massive campaign to repeal the estate tax.
These families – the members of which own the first and third largest privately held companies
in the United States and hold about a 40 percent share in the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart –
stand to save a whopping $71.6 billion if their bid succeeds.
They have relied on their fortunes, the resources of their companies and their business
connections to marshal a massive anti-estate tax juggernaut that has reported nearly a half-billion
dollars in lobbying expenditures ($490.3 million) since 1998.
The families also have helped finance outside groups that have spent millions on fear-mongering
ad campaigns intended to sway public opinion against the estate tax. These ads have shamelessly
retailed myths that the estate tax is responsible for wrecking small businesses and family farms,
and that regular Americans should fear a crushing tax bill when their loved ones die.
In fact, only about one-quarter of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006.
And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable in 2001 to
cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability – and
that was back when the exemption level was only a fraction of what it is today.
