Pete Stark: “let us understand and cut through all this nonsense about small businesses and small farms. Many of us in this Congress…”

“let us understand and cut through all this nonsense about small businesses and small farms. Many of us in this Congress pay a lot of income tax. I do. I have been very fortunate. My children will perhaps inherit from me when I pass on money in the amounts that they may have to pay in an estate tax. But the fact is, and I am joined in this observation by the Buffet and the Gates families, who hardly can be called liberals, and who have a lot, lot more money than most of us in Congress, and they find it abhorrent that we should try and protect children and give children millions of dollars. Now, no one is in any danger of losing a business, because the Code currently, first of all, allows people with small businesses that are privately held to pass those on at a deep discount, sometimes 30 and 40 percent off their value because they are illiquid. Secondly, it gives 15 years at very low interest rates, even less than 6 percent, for these beneficiaries to pay off any estate tax.”