Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, adding
another promise to his presidential campaign list, vowed to repeal the estate tax in a
speech directed at the Iowa farm community on Saturday. 

“We are going to get rid of the estate
taxes that are making the farmers sell their farms. I understand it. You have
farmers out there who are wealthy but they are a little bit cash short,”
Trump said. “It is a very bad thing, and it is killing people in Iowa. I
know that for a fact.”

As is the case with many Trump “facts,” there’s
not much truth involved.

As The
Hill points out, the estate tax — branded by critics as a “death tax” — is paid
on assets that are left to heirs after a person’s death. There are broad
exemptions for individuals with estates of less than about $5.5 million and
couples with estates with less than $11 million. 

Given that multi-million dollar threshold, the Tax Policy
Center estimates that just 53 estates in Iowa paid the levy in 2013. 
Nationwide, about 0.2 percent of all estates pay and, of those, TPC figures
that in 2009 (when the tax hit far more people) only about 1.3 percent of those
were small businesses or family farms.

 
 

 
 
 

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