New Life for Estate Tax Repeal?

In the early morning hours of July 29, the House passed a bill–HR 5970–that would raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 per hour beginning September 1, 1997 to $7.25/hour as of June 1, 2009, the first increase in almost 10 years. Tacked onto the bill were a number of amendments of particular interest to advisors and their higher-net-worth clients. Specifically, the bill would amend the IRC to increase the unified credit against the estate tax to an exclusion equivalent of $5 million by 2015 and would repeal the 2010 sunset provision for the estate and generation-skipping taxes. HR 5970 was passed by a vote of 230-180, gaining the support of 34 House Democrats in addition to 196 Republicans, but it's likely that the measure will face a much harder passage when it reaches the Senate floor this week.