Farm Groups Disappointed in Senate Defeat of Repeal

June 14, 2002

The American Farm Bureau Federation "is deeply disappointed" that the Senate failed to achieve the 60 votes needed for permanent repeal of the estate tax. Farmers and ranchers, more than any other group of Americans, will be disproportionately harmed if this onerous and punitive tax continues to stay on the books, AFBF President Bob Stallman said.

National Cattlemen's Beef Association didn't like the vote either. "The death tax has caused substantial losses within the cattle industry," said Jim Sinton, a cow/calf producer from Shandon, CA. "Many family-owned operations have been forced to sell off portions of if not all of their farms to pay the debt owed when assessed the death tax," he said.

Stallman said, "For years, farm families from across the country have asked their senators and representatives to remove the threat of the death tax from their families' futures. Congress answered the call last year--but the fix was only temporary."

The House recently approved a permanent elimination of the estate tax. But while a majority of the Senate voted to permanently kill the tax, the count was short of the needed 60 votes. And the result: farm and ranch families will pay for this mistake through the millions of dollars in remittance to Uncle Sam and lawyer and accountant fees for otherwise unnecessary estate plans, according to Stallman.

NCBA said Congress dealt family farmers, ranchers and small business owners "a major blow" with the vote. With the failure of the permanent repeal, the temporary repeal of the death tax will remain as it was enacted in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Through this act the repeal will be reinstated in 2011.

"We have worked hard on this issue and this was the first real opportunity we thought we had to finally kill the death tax for good," said Sinton.

The vote originally was scheduled to be voted on near the end of June. However, feeling the pressures of growing support from proponents of the permanent repeal Democratic leaders decided to fast track the vote by moving it up on the schedule.