Impact on Farms and Small Businesses
The Estate Tax and Entrepreneurship
Recent discussion of the Federal estate tax has focused in part on how it affects family farms and small businesses — particularly the possibility that having to pay the tax might jeopardize those operations. Analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and others points to few strong conclusions, both because available evidence is limited and because existing tax data make it difficult to determine which estates are those of farmers or small business owners.Under current law, if someone dies in 2005 and leaves an estate worth more than $1.5 million, the estate must file a return and pay taxes of…
