Yesterday, Senate Democrats dropped President Obama’s proposal to raise the death tax in favor of their own. Their plan included stripping all death tax provisions out of S. 3412. By purposefully dropping the death tax provision, at the end of the year the tax is set to revert to pre-2001 tax cut levels, a rate that is higher than the President’s initial proposal.

With her AYE vote on S. 3412, Senator McCaskill voted to subject Missouri small businesses, farms, and ranches to millions of dollars in additional taxes on earned assets.

In 2006, McCaskill said that she supported “extending the current exemption so that we don’t hurt family farmers.” ("Estate Tax Issue Draws Local Input," Columbia Daily Tribune, 6/7/06)

Hardest hit by the death tax are Missouri ranchers and farmers. They deserve answers about why McCaskill stood opposed to higher taxes that hurt them and now supports giving more than half of their acquired assets to the government in the unfortunate event that they die. Perhaps she stands with the President in thinking that if you’ve got a farm “you didn’t build that.”

“There is only one explanation for Senator McCaskill’s evolved position on a death tax hike for Missouri farmers and ranchers,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “She must agree with President Obama in that if you own a farm, ‘you didn’t build that.’ There is no other justification for taking over half of one’s assets in the unfortunate event of death. The death tax kills family farms.” continued Norquist.

“Missouri farmers are no more prepared to get ‘hurt’ today than they were in 2006, when the economy was doing much better. Senator McCaskill’s priorities should now be very clear to Missouri voters: higher taxes to pay for the government’s overspending problem” continued Norquist.

[PDF of Press Release]

Posted by Paul Blair on Thursday, July 26, 2012 1:45 PM EDT

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