[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2647-S2648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. COLLINS (for herself, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Hatch, and Mr. 
        Cochran):
  S. 482. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to 
partially exclude from the gross estate of a decedent the value of a 
family-owned business, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Finance.


       the family business and family farm protection act of 1997

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today I am proud to be introducing the 
Family Business and Family Farm Preservation Act of 1997, which will 
provide urgently needed estate tax relief to our Nation's family-owned 
businesses and farms. It is no accident that this is my first bill as a 
Member of the U.S. Senate, for I fervently believe that small, family 
enterprises hold the key to our economic growth and prosperity and that 
Government policies must promote and not undermine their continued 
existence.
  Simply put, the extremely high estate tax rates make it very 
difficult for many families to pass their businesses on to the next 
generation--the very opposite of what Government policy should be. 
After allowing for what is essentially a $600,000 exemption, an amount 
which has not been increased in a decade, the marginal rates that 
effectively apply for estate tax purposes range from 37 to 55 percent, 
higher than any other generally applicable Federal tax rates. Adding 
insult to injury, some of what we leave to our children has already 
been subject to income taxation, and the combined effect of income and 
estate taxes can be a tax bite as high as 73 percent.
  It should come as no surprise that when a family business or farm is 
left to the sons and daughters of the owner, the estate often lacks the 
cash to pay the tax. A 1995 Gallup survey found that one-third of the 
owners of family businesses expect that some or all of the company will 
have to be sold to satisfy estate tax liabilities. That this actually 
comes about is reflected in the experience of the inheritors of such 
businesses, 37 percent of whom reported that they had to shrink or 
restructure the enterprises solely to meet estate tax obligations.
  Mr. President, behind these statistics are the stories of hard-
working Americans whose life's work is dismantled by a confiscatory 
tax. One of those stories was recently told to me by Judy Vallee of 
Cumberland, ME. In 1933, her father opened a restaurant in Portland and 
worked hard over time to expand the business into a chain of 25 
restaurants along the east coast. When the father died in 1977, the 
family was left with a staggering estate tax bill of about $1 million. 
Lacking the cash to pay the tax, they had to take on partners outside 
the family, totally restructure the company, and arrange to pay the tax 
in installments. Unfortunately, even these measures were not enough, 
and they ultimately had to liquidate the business at fire-sale prices.

  Ironically, Judy Vallee now finds herself in the very same situation, 
but this time as a business owner and not a potential heir. When the 
original business was liquidated, she managed to purchase one of the 
restaurants in her own name, which she has now developed into a 
prosperous enterprise. Eager to leave the restaurant to her son and 
desperate to ensure that history does not repeat itself, she has spent 
a small fortune on life insurance to enable her son to enjoy the fruits 
of her own hard work.
  Mr. President, jobs are the primary worry of Maine people, and often 
overlooked in this debate is the negative effect of the estate tax on 
employment. Let me give you an example. A potato bag manufacturer in 
northern Maine, the area I'm originally from, has told me that he would 
be able to expand his operation and hire more people were it not for 
the money he has to spend on estate planning and life insurance. In 
another instance, the owner of a Maine trucking company made the 
painful decision to sell the business to a large, out-of-state 
corporation rather than leaving it to his children and forcing them to 
assume a large debt to pay the estate tax. Not only was he compelled to 
abandon what he and his father before him had spent their lives 
building, but making matters worse, the new corporate owner moved the 
administrative operations out of State, costing Maine 50 good jobs.
  Maine's experience is common throughout our Nation. The Gallup survey 
found that 60 percent of business owners reported that they would add 
to their work forces were it not for the estate tax. Two studies 
mentioned in a Wall Street Journal editorial last month quantified the 
job losses caused by this levy--one put it at 150,000 and the other at 
228,000. In a word, the harm is widespread.
  My bill would give relief to small businesses. It would raise the 
amount effectively excluded from the tax from $600,000 to $1,000,000, 
which probably does little more than compensate for inflation during 
the past decade. While $600,000 understandably seems like a 
considerable sum, the fact is that many small businesses require 
investment in complex or heavy equipment which easily exceeds that 
threshold. Referring to a machine essential to his business, the owner 
of a Maine sawmill recently asked me, ``What are my sons supposed to 
do? Sell the debarker to pay the tax?'' There is no justification for 
this legal Catch 22, under which the second- or third-generation 
business owner can only pay the tax by selling assets essential to 
running the business.

  My legislation would also lower the effective tax rate for the next 
$1.5 million from 55 to 27.5 percent and would increase from 10 to 20 
years the time during which family businesses could pay the tax on an 
installment basis.
  These measures are not designed to provide relief to large 
enterprises. Rather, the beneficiaries, Mr. President, will be 
enterprising Americans, many of whom risk their life savings and work 
at their factories, mills, offices, and farms 7 days a week to build a 
small business, with the reasonable expectation that their Government 
will let them pass it along to their children.
  Prior to becoming a Member of the Senate, I ran Husson College's 
Family Business Center in Bangor, ME. I would share with you two 
lessons I learned from that experience. First, those family business 
owners who understand the estate tax cannot comprehend why the Federal 
Government imposes a tax that undermines the very type of activity it 
says it wishes to encourage. Second, many small business owners do not 
take the extreme measures required to prepare for the estate tax, often 
with devastating and totally unexpected consequences for their 
families.
  Why do I call these measures extreme? In the Gallup survey, the 
respondents estimated spending an average of more than $33,000 over 
6\1/2\ years on lawyers, accountants, and financial experts to help 
plan and prepare for the estate tax. The cost is not only monetary, for 
the average number of hours spent in the planning process was 167.
  As currently designed, the estate tax represents bad public policy. 
In my State, it is the 30,000 small businesses, many of them family 
owned, which provide most of the new employment opportunities, and it 
is these businesses which will account for two-

[[Page S2648]]

thirds of the new jobs in the future. By discouraging the development 
and expansion of family enterprises, the estate tax stands as the enemy 
of job creation and economic growth.
  Mr. President, it is time for our actions to match our rhetoric. If 
we believe in promoting family businesses, as we say we do, and if we 
believe in promoting family farms, as we say we do, we must change a 
tax policy which takes the family out of the family business and family 
farm. Mine is not a call for Government assistance or for special 
treatment. Mine is a call to reform an unfair, destructive, and 
confiscatory tax.
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