Gund and her allies, including investor George Soros and actor Paul Newman, are part of a gold-plated petition drive by rich Americans who advocate that the government continue taxing their estates by up to 55 percent. The campaign is being organized by Responsible Wealth, a group that includes the Rockefellers. President Bush wants to repeal what he calls the “death tax” over the next 10 years, erasing a tax burden of as much as $285 billion on the estates of roughly 500,000 millionaires and billionaires. Bush contends that the tax, which raises $30 billion a year, discourages investment and economic growth and unfairly grabs money that has already been taxed. The petitioners argue that the estate tax makes America a meritocracy, not an aristocracy. They also fear that charitable giving will dry up as the nation’s rich no longer bequeath big chunks of their estates. “I myself don’t think it is healthy to give huge amounts of money to one’s children,” says Steven C. Rockefeller, scion of one of the oldest-money families in America.
The drive to keep death and taxes together is being led by William H. Gates Sr., father of America’s richest man, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. Gates Sr. told NEWSWEEK, “We should be striving for a society in which all races start at the same place and not with a few runners 100 yards down the track.” He said his son is “sympathetic” but did not sign the petition because he is focusing his philanthropic activity on improving world health. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who supports maintaining the estate tax, also declined to sign, because he believes the petition doesn’t go far enough.
President Bush is not backing down. But with pressure steadily mounting, the man who has been accused of inheriting the White House is about to learn just how taxing that bequest can be.
