McNerney backs estate tax relaxation
Nov 06, 2009 | 582 views | 3 
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Under existing law, family-owned farms are often forced to take out life insurance policies to ensure that land stays in the family after the owner’s death, while others are forced to sell property to pay off estate taxes, said David Phippen, an almond grower near Ripon.
Phippen and others took part in a Wednesday conference call during which McNerney explained how the Family Farm and Small Business Tax Relief Act would exempt from estate taxes any “family farm” that is passed down to the next generation, as long as it will be kept as a farm. Small businesses worth up to $8 million would also be exempt from the tax.
Right now, only family farms worth $1 million or less are exempt from the estate tax.
Sarah Hersh, a legislative aid for McNerney, said that as long as a farm is handed down to a family member, it would be eligible to be exempt from estate tax, regardless of size.
According to Howard Rosenberg, a professor in the University of California, Berkeley, agriculture department, that broad definition could include farms that are family-controlled corporations.
“Family farms may be organized as a … corporation, and all shares in a corporate farm certainly may be owned by a single family,” he said.
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Now we are told that we will have to wait till our children benefact from our estate sale to get our Congressman to do something for Tracy?
Doesn't Jerry's district reach all the way to Stockton (From Dublin/Pleasanton area?
Can someone tell me why a Congressman would bypass Tracy, and put jobs out in Stockton, in Dublin, etc. But NOT Tracy?
I think our Congressman has already forgotten about Tracyites?
Why can't the Tracy Press write an article about what someone said when Lousiana Flood occoured - and tell it like it is?
Our [Congress] doesn't care about Tracy?
Instead of creating loopholes for special interests and campaign donors, how about common sense tax reform measures to make doing taxes and estate planning easier for all of us?
In addition Jerry, where is the bill? I can find very similar bills introduced in this same Congressional session by other legislators
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3841:
But when I search Jerry McNerney I don't find anything?
McNerney introduced this legislation in 2007, and it went nowhere.
http://mcnerney.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=253&Itemid=40
In fact many different versions of this type of bill came up in the last year or so:
# HR 1929 and S 1994 introduced by the Salazar brothers of Colorado would exclude farms from estate taxes as long as the farms remain farms.
# HR 3170 comes from democrat Harry Mitchell of Arizona. It would raise the combined exclusion to $5mm from the 2009 limit of $3,5mm over a six year period.
# HR 3475 from democrat Michael Capuano of Massachusetts would increase the exclusion to $5mm in 2010. No phase in period.
# HR 4235 from democrat Nita Lowey of New York would change the exemption to $3mm immediately, bypassing the increasing to $3.5mm in 2009.
# HR 4172 from democrat Dennis Moore of Kansas again increases the exemption to $3.5mm a year early and indexes the exemption amount for inflation after that.
# HR 4242 from democrat Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota make the exemption $3mm for 2007 and 2008, $3.5mm for 2009 and beyond. It freezes the maximum tax at 47% for taxable amounts in excess of $2mm.
Read more: http://hinermangroup.com/blog/2008/03/08/let-the-games-begin/#ixzz0WIFFVbIx
What I would like to know. Did the reporter ask him how he will (or wont) help the Tracy, CA Police Department who flat out denied for a police fund - from our congress?
"Maybe we should write the congressperson??"
And I don't recall an article in the paper where he "backed" that one or anyone like it? It happened just this year and after the november elections.
Here in Tracy, we're seeing the vet hospital and hospital go to Stockton with ALL those jobs. And think about which congressperson "backed" those ideas.
You can relax the Estate Tax, but when they've lost the farm and their property value, it don't do much good. Now I hear someone is building a Mobile Home for the homeless farmers who can't afford to pay their mortgage.
I don't think I can believe this. Not for a minute!