House Votes on Federal Estate Tax Bill

The House of Representatives today passed a version of the bill that originally was introduced as HR 4154.  The bill that was passed repeals the one-year estate tax repeal that would have taken effect on January 1, 2010 and substitutes a permanent extension of the current federal estate tax.  It freezes the exemption at its 2009 level –  $3,500,000 (without providing for indexing the exemption for inflation) – and also caps the tax rate at 45% for estates larger than $3,500,000. Not much that is surprising here, but no really bad news, either.  Of course, the Senate has not acted yet.