Bernie Sanders Floats New Estate Tax Bill

The current estate tax exemption is $12.92 million, indexed for inflation. The exemption will be cut in half in 2026 unless new legislation is passed.

Sanders added in the statement that "over and over again, Republicans in Washington have professed their deep concern about the national debt and yet virtually all of them have signed onto legislation that would provide a $1.8 trillion tax giveaway to billionaires by repealing the estate tax. How absurd is that?"

At a time of "massive wealth and income inequality, we need to make sure that people who inherit over $3.5 million pay their fair share of taxes," Sanders stated.

The bills are endorsed by Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of more than 420 national, state and local endorsing organizations, including AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Patriotic Millionaires, and Public Citizen.

The bill comes on the heels of legislation introduced by 41 Senate Republicans to permanently repeal the estate tax — the Death Tax Repeal Act — "would provide a $1.8 trillion tax giveaway to billionaires in America and would only provide relief to the top one-tenth of one percent," Sanders and Gomez said.

Gomez and Sanders said that under their legislation, "the families of all 735 billionaires in America — who have a combined net worth of more than $4.5 trillion — would owe up to $1 trillion more in additional estate taxes."

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, a previous version of the For the 99.5% Act would raise $430 billion over its first 10 years of enactment, Gomez and Sanders said.