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                                                                Order Code RS21224
                                                                Updated July 23, 2002



 CRS Report for Congress

              Received through the CRS Web



      Estate Tax: Legislative Activity in 2002

                             Nonna A. Noto
                       Specialist in Public Finance
                    Government and Finance Division

Summary


      Under the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001
 (EGTRRA, P.L. 107-16), the estate tax is scheduled to be repealed in 2010 but
 reinstated in 2011. All tax provisions of EGTRRA are scheduled to sunset on
 December 31, 2010. On April 18, 2002, the House passed H.R. 586, part of which
 would remove the sunset provision and thereby make permanent the repeal of the estate
 tax and all other provisions of the tax cut law enacted in June 2001. On June 6, 2002,
 the House passed H.R. 2143 which would remove the sunset provision solely from the
 estate tax provisions of EGTRRA. The House defeated a substitute amendment offered
 by Representative Pomeroy that would have retained the estate tax but increased the
 exclusion to $3 million per decedent in 2003.
     The Senate leadership agreed to take up the estate tax alone, before June 28, 2002,
 through H.R. 8, under a unanimous consent agreement. On June 12, the Senate failed
 to waive the budget point of order on the three amendments offered. The Gramm-Kyl
 amendment, identical to H.R. 2143, would have removed the sunset provision on the
 estate tax provisions of EGTRRA, making estate tax repeal permanent. A Democratic
 substitute amendment offered by Senator Conrad would have kept the maximum estate
 tax rate at its 2002 level of 50% and increased the exclusion per decedent to $3 million
 in 2003 and $3.5 million in 2009. An amendment to the Democratic substitute offered
 for Senator Dorgan would have provided a full tax deduction for qualified family-owned
 business interests starting in 2003, increased the exclusion to $4 million per decedent
 in 2009, and permitted the maximum tax rate to continue to fall to 45% for 2007 and
 after. The underlying estate tax repeal bill, H.R. 8, was not voted on and was returned
 to the Senate calendar. This report will be updated as legislative events warrant.


 Background

    The estate tax and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax are scheduled to be
repealed effective January 1, 2010, under Title V of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief
Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA, P.L. 107-16). However, under Title IX of the
Act, the estate tax repeal, and all other provisions of EGTRRA (pronounced egg-tra), are
scheduled to sunset as of December 31, 2010. If the sunset provision is not repealed, in


       Congressional Research Service 4** The Library of Congress

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