Greetings,

 Update - August 1, 2005:

Senate Majority Leader Frist filed on July 29 a cloture motion to proceed to a vote on the House-passed estate tax repeal legislation, H.R.8.

A procedural vote will occur in early Septemer on the motion to proceed to H.R. 8.  Sixty votes are needded to prevent a filibuster.  Please urge your Senator to vote for full and permanent estate tax repeal!

Death Tax Update

          FMI has moved to delay, until the chance of success is greater, the announced July vote to repeal the death tax.  We have done this because we are concerned that supporters of full repeal are not ready for this vote seriously jeopardizing our chances of success.  Let me explain.

          Last week we alerted you to an effort by Senator Kyl (R-AZ) to force a compromise or a vote on complete repeal of the death tax.  We asked you to contact your Senators to urge total repeal and, if that was impossible, to insist on negotiating an acceptable compromise that would provide the maximum relief possible.

          Since then, we became very concerned that the Senate push for full repeal was not being well coordinated with either the White House or the business community.  Unless all the supporters of repeal work together to find the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, we will fail and miss an historic opportunity to eliminate this unfair tax.

          This triggered an effort on our part to make sure that, if there is a vote in the Senate, it is at a time when we can guarantee a maximum, coordinated effort on behalf of ALL of the supporters of complete repeal.  Consequently, both the White House and the Tax Reform Coalition, of which FMI is a management committee member, have notified Senator Kyl and the Congressional Leadership that they are opposed to a showdown vote before they can properly orchestrate outside support.

         FMI believes that the President is fully committed to repeal.  He is currently focused on a number of important domestic and international issues and simply doesn't have the time to actively push Senators to vote for repeal.  Hopefully, this will change in the near future and ALL the supporters of full repeal will be able to move forward together.  When that happens, FMI will be fully engaged and will ask for all of its members to do everything they can to win this historic vote.

          Following is a letter the Tax Coalition sent to Senator Frist:

Tax Relief Coalition

1725 K Street, N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC  20006

TEL: 202-872-0885  w   FAX: 202-296-5940

July 20, 2005

The Honorable Bill Frist

Senate Majority Leader

S-230 Capitol Building

Washington, DC  20510

Dear Leader:

On behalf of the more-than-1,000 members of the Tax Relief Coalition (TRC), representing more than 1.8 million employers, we are writing to reiterate the Coalition's continued strong support for full repeal of the death tax.  Repeal of the death tax has long been a top priority for the small business community, and thousands of small businesses worked energetically for enactment of the tax relief act in 2001 because death tax repeal was included in that bill.  Few small business owners understand arcane Reconciliation rules which prevented permanent repeal; many believe they were misled upon learning repeal would last only one year and worse, that the tax would recur the following year as if it had never been addressed.

TRC members very much appreciate the effort and promise of the Senate Republican leadership to bring repeal legislation to the floor.  The small business community is again prepared to actively engage in the fight for repeal.  While we understand that scheduling floor votes in the Senate is an uncertain art at best, we would very greatly appreciate knowing as far in advance as possible when floor consideration might occur so that we can ensure the maximum level of participation from our small business members so that Senators are aware of the intensity on this issue from their constituents.

Moreover, we have read reports of negotiations toward reaching a compromise on this issue, and would urge you on behalf of the millions of small businesses in each state across America to take the fight for full repeal to the Senate floor.  We believe that the death tax is inherently and conceptually flawed tax policy, and not an issue on which compromise should be sought.  At minimum, we believe it would be a serious mistake, and exceptionally difficult to again explain to small business, if a compromise is advanced without first giving the small business community the opportunity to actively put their resources to the task of delivering the votes for full repeal.

Again, we appreciate your support for repeal, and look forward to the opportunity to work with you toward achieving our shared objective. 

TRC Management Committee:

Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform  

Stephen E. Sandherr, Chief Executive Officer, Associated General Contractors

John J. Castellani, President, The Business Roundtable   

John Motley, Senior Vice President-Government Affairs, Food Marketing Institute

Matt Kibbe, President, FreedomWorks  

David French, Senior Vice President, International Foodservice Distributors Association

Mike Baroody, Executive Vice President, National Association of Manufacturers                 

Dirk Van Dongen, President, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors

Dan Danner, Senior Vice President-Public Policy, National Federation of Independent Business

Rob Green, Acting Sr. Vice President-Government Affairs, National Restaurant Association

R. Bruce Josten, Executive Vice President-Government Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

cc:  All Members of the U.S. Senate

For a complete list of the Tax Relief Coalition members, please go to:

http://www.taxreliefcoalition.org/members.html