Pay-Go passes in the House

Tax Notes Today ($) reports that "pay as you go" legislation passed in the House by 265-166. This is an attempt to implement an Orwellian forced tax hike process. Every year the Congress has added a one-year inflation adjustment to the AMT, because no one really wants to impose the AMT on the middle class. Under Pay-go, every year they are then "required" to raise someone else's taxes instead, to offset the "revenue loss" from a tax that they never intended to impose.

What a country!

But the important point for estate planners, the reason for this post, is that an extension of the 2009 estate tax rules has been specifically exempted from Pay-go (a larger exemption would not be). That makes the extension more likely--it was already likely. The Senate is not as excited about Pay-go as is the House.