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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!
Dear FMI Wholesaler Member -
Since we know that Estate Tax
Repeal is very important to your family business customers, we
are sending this to you for
your information. This was sent to FMI
member Independent Operators this morning.
Tim Hammonds
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
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