State-by-State Look: Estate Tax Repeal Benefits Only Wealthiest Few

“The odds are good,” Senate Finance Committee member John Thune noted recently, “that we can repeal the estate tax” in the coming tax reform debate. He suggested “consensus support” for his 2015 proposal, to which House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady introduced an identical bill in the House. But repealing the estate tax would be unwise, as it would cut revenues and, as our state-by-state table below shows, benefit only the heirs of the richest handful of estates in each state.

Senator Thune’s repeal bill would cost the government $269 billion over the decade, the Joint Tax Committee estimated. Repeal also would eliminate the tax code’s most progressive component: the top 10 percent of taxpayers pay 97 percent of the estate tax, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Currently, the estate tax doesn’t apply to the first $10.9 million of a couple’s estate, and estates that are subject to the tax consist mostly of unrealized capital gains that would otherwise never be taxed. As a result, repealing the estate tax would benefit only a small number of the wealthiest estates. In 2017, just 5,400 estates — roughly 2 out of every 1,000 Americans who die — would benefit. Those that benefit would get an average tax cut of more than $3 million, with 331 estates worth more than $50 million getting more than $20 million apiece, on average. Contrary to what repeal’s proponents suggest, only roughly 50 of the taxable estates would be small businesses or family farms.

See, below, estimates of roughly how many and what percentage of estates in each state would benefit from repeal in 2017.