Estate Tax Revenues Drop
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An article by Robert Frank in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal describes the recent dramatic drop in taxable estate tax returns. The rising estate tax exemption (currently $2 million), decreases in the tax rate, effective tax planning, increasing charitable giving by the super-wealthy and the advent of young dot.com millionaires all seem to be contributing to the reduction in returns and revenues.
In 2005 only 18,431 taxable estate tax returns were filed, one-third less than the year before, despite the fact that the number of millionaire households in the U.S. has increased more than twofold between 1995 and 2004.