Eleven Months Left

It's difficult to blog about the Senate's progress on H.R. 4154 when there is no evidence of any action on the estate tax. The Senate came back late from the holidays on Jan. 19, and has spent the last two weeks apparently doing nothing about the estate tax. H.R. 4154 was passed by the House on Dec. 3, but has not been the subject of any hearings in the Senate, nor has it been placed on a calendar for a Senate debate.

There was talk late last year that Sen. Baucus wanted to introduce a bill similar to H.R. 4154, which continues the estate tax with a $3.5 million exclusion amount. Sen Baucus's bill would make the estate tax retroactive to Jan. 1, instead of allowing any period of repeal. A check of Sen. Baucus's website shows no mention of such a bill, and a search of his committee websites also produces no results. Must have been a nasty rumor.

In any event, the longer this goes, the less chance there is that retroactivity will work. The Supreme Court might have bought into a few weeks of retroactive tax legislation, but several months or an entire year probably would be rejected by the justices.

So here we are: One month down the drain, 11 months left until we're back to where we would have been if the current tax bill had not been approved in 2001. And that's a $1 million exclusion and a maximum tax rate of 55 percent. Sound too bad to be true? Wake up some Senators and ask them.