Chuck Grassley: “I speak in favor of doing away with the death tax. To follow a principle of taxation and not just for the sole purpose…”

“I speak in favor of doing away with the death tax. To follow a principle of taxation and not just for the sole purpose of doing away with the tax, but following on what the Senator from South Dakota said, an obvious one is that death should not be an incident of taxation--not because it is death, but because when you collect taxes in an instance like that, it is like a fire sale. When you force a sale at a particular time to pay taxes, the value is going to be less than if the marketplace works. So by letting the asset pass from one generation to the other and letting the succeeding generation sell it according to the willing buyer/willing seller, more money is going to come in. That is a principle that has been laid out by the Senator from South Dakota. Another principle that hasn't been spoken about yet is when to tax for Government services--tax income the earliest it is made, and tax it once. Beyond that, you ought to let the marketplace decide the value of something and tax it accordingly. Under both circumstances, more money is going to come into the Federal Treasury. So I believe that death should not be a taxable event. Since I have been in the U.S. Senate, I have been working on reform of the estate tax.…”