Stealth amendment shouldn't mean death to the estate tax

The estate tax issue is again on the front burner. The possibility of a new Congress in 2007 has prompted estate tax opponents to resolve they must achieve their goal this year. This will require 60 Senate votes, a goal that the anti-estate tax people fell three votes short of on June 9.

At that time both Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell cast votes indicating they were opposed to outright repeal or the significant reduction of estate tax rates. Since then, anti-estate tax forces have come to the conclusion that outright repeal is not possible and now choose to focus only on severely limiting the estate tax burden on the very, very richest families.

An estate tax "relief" bill passed the House last Thursday and will soon be on the Senate floor. To obtain the required 60 votes, it will be necessary for the anti-estate forces to capture a few of the senators who voted against estate tax relief earlier this month. In these disastrous budgetary times, why would Washington's two senators depart from their colleagues in the Senate Democratic caucus by supporting a tax cut that would remove the estate tax for 99.7 percent of estates and drastically cut the tax rates applicable to the less than one-half of 1 percent of estates remaining subject to the estate tax?

The bill's cost -- $760 billion, which is debt financed -- benefits only the ultra-richest families. Why would Murray and/or Cantwell take a such a huge step to further enlarge and entrench the financial aristocracy, which is already a threat our country's fabric as a well-functioning society? If the senators' goal is to put this pesky issue behind them, as some have suggested, that is not a sufficient reason for a senator whom we expect to show courage on tough issues.

To lessen the resolve of four senators who voted earlier in opposition to the anti-estate tax group, those seeking to reduce the estate tax to a mere speck of its present self have added a stealth amendment aimed at reducing the income tax on timber corporations. By granting timber corporations a deduction equal to 60 percent of their income from the sale of timber, this change would reduce the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 14 percent (more than a 50 percent tax rate cut).

The only apparent reason for its inclusion is as a brazen attempt to lure senators such as Murray and Cantwell away from previous positions (with senators from Louisiana and Arkansas, also timber states, as targets as well). It would be hoped that no senator in good conscience could be enticed into bartering her vote on this crucially important issue simply because a hefty and unwarranted tax cut for important corporate constituents such as Weyerhaeuser is dangled in front of her, especially when it is so obvious that the timber amendment was put in solely for the purpose of changing the senator's position on the estate tax.

With the tax benefit available only when the timber is cut, environmentalists will not at all like the cutting spree that will occur before the timber tax benefit sunsets at the end of 2008. If there ever was a clear example of the principle that two wrongs don't make a right, this is it!

Meade Emory is an emeritus professor of law at the University of Washington School of Law.

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