April 19, 2001 | Read Time: 1 minute
By JANET L. FIX
When the Senate returns from its spring recess next week, President Bush faces an uphill fight to eliminate the estate tax, a move that some people fear could hurt charitable giving. Having convinced the House to pass a repeal of the tax, Mr. Bush must now win over a Senate evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.
The House on April 4 voted 274 to 154 for H.R. 8, the Death Tax Elimination Act of 2001. The legislation would repeal the rates above 53 percent and the surtax on estates worth over $10-million, and would gradually phase out the remaining rates, by 1 or 2 percentage points a year, until the estate tax is fully repealed by December 31, 2010.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman William M. Thomas, Republican of California, said the vote illustrated the “orderly movement of the president’s program” through the House.
The process could prove disorderly in the Senate. The Senate Finance Committee plans to draft a comprehensive tax package in May. But first it must consolidate several House tax bills into one that the Senate might pass.
