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For more than a generation, Republicans have rallied to the flag of “kill the death tax,” and for good reason: Poll after poll shows it to be the tax that ordinary Americans find the most unfair. Democrats, understanding this, have cooperated (however reluctantly) in reducing the tax (its rate has fallen from 55 percent to 40 percent this century) and expanding the exemption to it (now as high as $25 million for a married couple). And on the state level, death taxes have all but disappeared from tax codes.
Yet now, the “norms restoring” Biden administration is attempting to double down, by creating a new, parallel death tax to go alongside the old one no one likes.
The Biden administration proposes that on top of the old death tax, which is assessed on estates, the federal government should add a new tax on the deceased’s last 1040 personal-income-tax return. This new, second tax would apply to tens of millions of Americans.