Revenue Analysis Of Options To Reform The Estate Tax, Gift tax And Generation Skipping Transfer Tax
Our federal transfer tax system has three related components: The estate tax, a gift tax and a generation-skipping transfer tax.
For much of its history, wealth transfer taxes were enacted to finance Wars. They were never meant to be a major source of government revenue.
In 2015, the last year of which data are available, approximately 5,000 descendants paid $17.1 billion in federal estate taxes.