Thomas Mott Osborne: “I rise in support of H.R. 2143. Mr. Speaker, I do come from a rural area. We have 52,000 farmers and ranchers in…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 2143. Mr. Speaker, I do come from a rural area. We have 52,000 farmers and ranchers in Nebraska. I heard some figures that were unbelievable to me, that maybe only 400 farmers in this country would benefit from the repeal of the death tax. I would say out of 52,000 farmers in Nebraska, that we would look at probably somewhere between 15 and 20,000 that would benefit tremendously and will probably not be able to pass their farm on without some repeal of the death tax. Let me give Members an example. A small ranch in Nebraska is 12,000 acres. That will support about 300 cows and that will support one family. That probably started out at $25 an acre, it is now worth $300 an acre, so it was maybe worth $100,000 when the farmer started out roughly 30 years ago. So it has increased in value. If they have two children and the last surviving parent dies in 2010, that ranch, which is worth $5 million today, would go on to those two children and they would pay no tax. But in 2011, their tax bill would be $2 million. They cannot pay that tax. They have to sell the ranch. That is an actual example of an average to small-sized ranch in Nebraska. The Coble family in Mullen, Nebraska, had that happen to them. And who bought the ranch? Ted Turner bought the ranch. Ted Turner owns several hundred thousand acres in Nebraska today, most of which has been bought because people could not afford to keep the ranch because of the inheritance tax.”