Why Did Congress Pass an Estate Tax?
There are three main reasons members of Congress give when asked that question. First, there is the obvious need to raise revenue. The estate tax produces billions of dollars in tax revenue each year. Second, Congress believes that there is fairness to the tax because those who have accumulated substantial resources have benefited from the opportunity to build assets in an American economy. While there understandably are a lot of opinions about the federal government, the ability of the government to provide for national security and protection of property enables wealth to be accumulated. Because Americans with substantial property benefit from national and local security, members of Congress believe that it is fair to tax property at death. Third, the estate tax is believed to perform a social function of breaking up large estates. Because a person cannot simply accumulate a Bill Gates-size estate and pass that on to family with no tax, it encourages the distribution of the estate to
