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MOFB sends Biden letter opposing President’s tax plan

Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins has sent a letter to President Biden expressing his opposition to the President’s proposed tax changes.

Biden’s tax proposal under the American Families Plan would nearly double capital gains taxes to almost 40 percent, eliminate the stepped-up basis on assets exceeding $1 million causing inherited assets, like land, to be taxed upon the previous owner’s death and lower the estate tax threshold from $11.7 million to $500,000.  

The tax plan, according to a White House release, will add protections from the elimination of the stepped-up basis for family-owned businesses and farms when given to heirs who continue to operate the business.

While the Biden tax plan attempts to target the ‘top one percent’, Hawkins said the proposal would heavily tax farm families and force them to replan how they pass down their farms.

“It is more cost upfront as we work with accountants and attorneys to best plan how we carry the farm forward to the next generation,” he said. “But then it also has that impact, ultimately, at death in terms of how those heirs handle it.”

Currently, inherited assets are not taxed unless the heir decides to sell the asset.

Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri has co-sponsored the Death Tax Repeal Act which would remove the estate tax entirely.

“We want to see Congressman Smith’s bill actually passed and enacted verses going the opposite direction which is what the administration is proposing,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins said Missouri Farm Bureau believes death should not be a taxable event calling the stepped-up basis ‘critical’.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota has introduced companion legislation to Smith’s bill. Bipartisan, bicameral legislation has also been introduced that would cut the estate tax in half to 20 percent.

Garrett Hawkins Interview

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