Spencer Cox: “the preceding speaker just told us that he does not like the carryover basis. And I will tell you what. If his amendment…”

“the preceding speaker just told us that he does not like the carryover basis. And I will tell you what. If his amendment got rid of any aspect of carryover basis in death tax I would vote for it. But this is a give-with-the-right-hand, take-away-with- the-left-hand operation that he is proposing, because what he is also doing is he is bringing back the 47 percent death tax. We are trying to repeal the death tax, not bring it back; and you cannot tell us that capital gains at 15 percent is worse than the death tax at 47 percent. And as the gentleman from North Dakota just mentioned, we do not have a carryover basis in its entirety. We have simply a step up in basis for both the spouse and for the children. I wish we could get rid of the carryover basis. I would be thrilled with that. But the Pomeroy substitute gives us the death tax back full strength at 47 percent tax rate, and it arbitrarily says that a small business that is worth $3 million is going to have to deal with this. Now you have to ask yourself, in advance of your death, do you know what the assets and inventory of your business is going to be 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the road? The answer is no. Of course not. You are going to have to do that tax compliance year in and year out. Tax compliance, the cost of actual accountants and lawyers and life insurance and all the other things that you have to do to deal with the death tax year in and year out is $20 billion a year.…”