With the election of Donald Trump, Americans want to know: will he follow through on his vow to deliver death to the death tax? There is a good chance that Trump will abolish the estate tax because it has become complicated and costly to administer and the increase in capital gains tax would provide a simpler system. The estate tax as well as its counterparts, the gift tax and the generation-skipping transfer tax, all bring complications while raising little revenue. In order to evaluate whether keeping these taxes, it will be important for the new President-elect to consider their social purposes.
See Jeff Schlegel, Death to the Death Tax?, Financial Advisor, January 3, 2017.
