Repealing the estate tax is a perennial GOP proposal. The estate tax is a progressive tax that only applies to the super wealthy: estates worth more than $5.49 million for an individual or nearly $11 million for a couple. Of the millions of people who die each year in the United States, less than 0.2 percent of estates are subject to any estate tax at all.
Since the gain in value of stock, art, real estate, and other capital assets is not taxed unless the assets are sold, the estate tax is designed to ensure that wealthy people pay at least some tax on assets they’ve held onto before those assets are passed down to their lucky heirs. Repealing the estate tax is not about making the tax code simpler or fairer. It’s about enabling millionaires and billionaires to pass valuable assets to their heirs tax-free.