"Estate Tax Turns 100": Paul Caron in Wall Street Journal article

April 29, 2016 -- Dean Paul Caron commented in a recent Wall Street Journal article,"Happy Anniversary! The Estate Tax Turns 100."  The article considers the debate over whether the U.S. estate tax, passed in 1916, should remain or be repealed.

Via The Wall Street Journal:

As was true in 1917, the estate tax has seldom raised much money compared with other levies. According to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation, the estate tax—together with the gift tax, which applies to asset transfers made during life—contributed an average of 1.4% annually to total federal revenues between 1950 and 2014. That's a far cry from the average of 44% the individual income tax contributed annually to the total for the same period.

The U.S. estate tax has never affected many people, either. According to Paul Caron, an estate-tax specialist who teaches at Pepperdine Law School, it often has applied to fewer than 2% of those dying each year...

Read more on the Wall Street Journal website.