Stupid Lobbyists

As a tax professional, one of the things that irks me the most is the effectiveness with which lobbying groups have managed to inseminate their viewpoints, which only benefit a small minority of people, into the public sphere.  Much has been written but it seems that nobody can educate the public or has the resources to fight the disinformation being provided by lobbyists who wish to end the estate tax, even though it only affects the rich.  Part of my job includes estate tax planning and I already know that my clients can effectively plan around most of the estate tax burdens as they are, but they should still be in place, and possibly be more restrictive so that we don't continue to have the family wealth monopolies that control our current landscape.  

From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce web-site:

The U.S. Chamber is opposing a proposal by the incoming administration and Congress to retain the estate tax, also known as the death tax, instead of allowing it to expire as scheduled in 2010.

 “If Washington’s incoming leadership really wants to jumpstart the economy and create jobs, they can start by sending the death tax to the grave once and for all,” says Chamber Executive Vice President for Government Affairs Bruce Josten. “We should not be burdening hard working Americans with this serious, home-grown threat when they face enough competition from emerging markets abroad.”

100% BS.  There will be no jobs created because of a repeal of the estate tax.  There will just be wealthy families able to pass their fortunes on to their children easily and forever.  Want some more BS?  How about this statement from a lobbyist hired by the Waltons (Wal-Mart fortune and America's wealthiest family):

Aubrey Rothrock III, a Washington lobbyist hired by the family, says the Waltons are mostly interested in bills to increase charitable giving through their family foundation. "The estate tax repeal initiative has never been the focus of our advocacy efforts," he says.

I would hope that even a layman would find it hard to believe that the Waltons are interested in bills to increase charitable giving through their family foundations.  What exactly is stopping them from giving everything to charity?  I'm not aware of a single limitation to the charitable deduction and in fact you could give your entire fortune to a foundation or to charities directly and pay NO ESTATE TAX.  Each of the children were given their share of the company before its growth, so Sam did some pretty good estate planning their.   When the wife of Sam Walton died she gave her wealth to the Walton Family Foundation (like I said, no estate tax, nothing to the government).  The funny thing is that Walton Family Foundation paid compensation of 1.3M to Walton Enterprises LLC in 2006 for management of the Foundation so even some of that money just gets plowed back into the family.  It's all a remarkable fleecing and I wish that better information could get around than what most people hear.