More on Taxing Business-Owning Estates

Ray Madoff's idea of taxing estates heavily but exempting estates of business owners generated several letters to The New York Times. Here's an observation from an accountant:

In my experience, the family business fails upon the death of the patriarch or matriarch because of the family. Spouses from a second marriage do not get along with the children. Children do not get along with one another. And when nobody plans for the inevitable, the business suffers from a lack of unified management and is often split into pieces.

Exempting family businesses from estate tax would encourage keeping a business in the family when it might do better if sold to employees or outsiders. The sponsor of this blog could probably serve as an illustration. If the founder had sought to keep his small advertising and marketing firm in the family, The Merrill Anderson Company probably would not around 75 years after its founding.

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Take a moment to appreciate Jason Logan's illustration that accompanies the letters to The Times. That's not a rock and a hard place between which we're stuck – it's Death and Taxes!