DEATH TAXES

Before the end of this year, Congress must decide what to do about the dreaded estate tax (also known as the "death tax"). The death tax expired for 2010 but it comes back in full force on January 1, 2011. The expiration of the death tax was the culmination of a decade-long phase out of this economically damaging tax. The 2001 tax relief lowered the rate of the death tax from 55 percent in 2000 to 45 percent in 2009, and raised the amount of an estate exempt from taxation over the same period from $1 million to $3.5 million, before eliminating the tax completely in 2010. read on---