James M. Talent: “I did want to talk briefly about the death tax because we have held hearings on this in the Committee on Small…”

“I did want to talk briefly about the death tax because we have held hearings on this in the Committee on Small Business... It is the small family business, people who have done, as you were saying before so eloquently, who have done what we want them to do. They have worked, they have saved, they invested. They do not go out to eat a lot, they do not take a lot of trips. They have started a family business. And something like 60 percent of family businesses in this country are seriously adversely affected by the death tax. Many of them have to liquidate in order to pay the death tax. There was a lady who testified at a hearing we held in St. Louis, my district, on this issue, and that woman almost broke down in tears describing what she and her brother were trying to do to save their family business from the IRS, the business their father had built up and worked his whole life to preserve and passed on to them. And then the government, swooping in and trying to grab it from them. And I would say to the gentleman, what happens to the employees of the family business when the business has to liquidate or sell out to a big company in order to pay the estate tax? Who gets laid off? It is the employees.”