Estate tax affects very few Coloradans

Less than 1 percent of deaths in Colorado in 2008 resulted in estate tax liability in 2009, according to figures Citizens for Tax Justice reported in a paper released today. In all, the federal estate tax applied to only 257 estates in Colorado last year.

The paper offers lots of context and detail about how the estate tax works and the possible consequences of different proposals to change it. Highlights:

• "The estate tax that would exist under President Obama’s tax plan would affect even fewer estates, which demonstrates why Congress should consider enacting a more robust estate tax than what President Obama proposes."
• "The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that President Obama’s estate tax proposal would reduce taxes by about $253 billion over the next ten years, compared to simply allowing the pre-Bush estate tax rules to come back into effect in 2011 as scheduled under current law."
• "IRS data show that for the 0.6 percent of deaths [nationwide] in 2008 that resulted in estate tax liability in 2009, the effective estate tax rate was 20.4 percent. (The effective rate for the other 99.4 percent of people who died was zero percent.)"

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