A conversation between Rush & an Estate Planner

by AFBI - No Comments
Posted on November 2nd, 2011 5:23 pm

A caller on the Rush Limbaugh radio program asked recently about estate taxes. Rush's take? Read below:

“Every year estate planners want to talk to me about estate planning and it seems that they think that the primary objective of any estate planning is going to be to keep money away from the government. So they want to structure trusts, charitable donations, foundations, any number of things, and I always say to 'em, "Yeah, but the problem with doing that is I am getting rid of all my money before I die." "Yeah, but at least the government ain't gonna get it." "Well, I don't care, frankly. I want access to as much of it as I can before I die."

I don't want to have to shelter it all now while I'm still alive so I can't get it just to keep the government from getting it sometime. I go round and round with 'em on it.”

Here’s the full transcript:http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/10/25/steve_jobs_and_the_death_tax

What would you tell an estate tax planner?

Tags: death tax, estate planning, estate tax, rush

Life-Insurance Industry Spends Millions to Keep Death Tax Alive

by Dick Patten - No Comments
Posted on November 30th, 2010 9:10 am

The other side in the debate often libels the supporters of repeal as “greedy, rich fat cats.”

What you may not know is that the real “greed” rests with the life-insurance industry. It spends millions to keep the estate tax alive – in order to keep selling (and profiting from) estate tax-related policies for family business owners and farmers.

Today, the American Family Business Foundation (AFBF) released a new Issue Brief: “Life Insurance Cash Cow: An Issue Brief on the Hidden Side of Estate Tax Lobbying,” co-authored by Tim Carney, an award-winning investigative journalist and Senior Political Columnist with the Washington Examiner, and yours truly.

The brief documents the life-insurance industry’s full-court press to keep the death tax alive. You see, the life insurance industry stands to lose a lot if Congress repeals the estate tax.

As the brief notes, the life insurance industry makes an estimated 10 percent of its revenues from products designed to help family business owners minimize or avoid the estate tax.

What that means is that while repealing the estate tax might be good for family business owners and farmers, it’s bad for the BIG business of selling life insurance.

No wonder then that the life insurance lobby spent some $10 million per month in the first half of 2010 alone, when the President and certain Members of Congress were working to reinstate the tax. During this same period, only three industries – pharmaceuticals, electric utilities, and oil and gas industries – spent more over the same period.

The brief also points out how the industry’s top dogs at the American Council of Life Insurers (the 10-ton Gorilla in the life-insurance industry) have political clout other industries would “die” to have for themselves. For example, you can read about Kimberly Dorgan, the wife of outgoing Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), a long-time death tax repeal opponent in the Senate.

Money talks, and in the Foundation’s newest Issue Brief, you can see exactly how and why the life industry is talking one way to family business owners and farmers…and another way to Congress.

Click here to learn more by reading the American Family Business Foundation Issue Brief.

Tags: death tax, estate planning, estate tax, life insurance, lobbying, second-to-die