The Senate Finance Committee expects to hold a hearing on the federal estate tax Nov. 14.
The list of witnesses for the hearing, which comes with the title "Federal Estate Tax: Uncertainty in Planning under the Current Law," includes Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Omaha, Neb., the parent company of Gen Re Corp., Stamford, Conn.
Buffett has complained in recent weeks that the tax rate on his own income is lower than the tax rate on the income of his employees.
In addition to Buffett, witnesses scheduled to testify at the Nov. 14 hearing include an estate planning attorney, a state senator and rancher from Nevada, and a manufacturing company executive from Iowa.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is scheduling the upcoming estate tax hearing in part because of a promise he made earlier this year to Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., in an effort to win passage of an agriculture bill.
In addition to the Nov. 14 hearing, there likely will be another hearing in December or January 2008 along with another session to mark up a Kyl estate tax bill, according to the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting, Falls Church, Va.
