ECONOMY — GRASSLEY SIGNS ON TO ESTATE TAX BILL THAT COULD EXEMPT HIS ENTIRE FORTUNE WHILE AFFECTING FEW OTHERS: President Bush’s massive tax cuts for the rich included a provision that that repealed the estate tax in 2010. Though the tax is slated to spring back to the 2001 rate in 2011, the House passed a bill late last year to re-establish the tax at the reduced 2009 level. Under this rate, estates worth less than $3.5 million pay no taxes at all, while larger estates pay 45 percent of anything above that threshold. As a bill to reinstate the tax is negotiated in the Senate, some senators have been pushing to cut this tax on multi-millionaires even lower to 35 percent, while raising the exemption to $5 million. Iowa’s Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) has signed onto the plan, thus coming out in support of what could be an enormous tax break for his own family. Grassley’s net worth is between $2.1 and $5.2 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, so his entire estate could be exempted under a $5 million exemption. Moreover, Grassley’s proposed tax cut would affect few families other than his own. If the 2009 rate were made permanent, 99.8 percent of estates would owe no tax at all. If these levels were made permanent, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out that “[o]nly three percent of taxes owed” would be from estates that are, like Grassley’s, worth less than $5 million. The vast majority of current estate tax revenue comes from the “extremely wealthy,” with 62.5 percent of revenue coming from estates worth more than $20 million. Beyond this, the cut would cost $60 to $80 billion in lost revenue, which would have to be offset with spending cuts or other tax increases. As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo has noted, it’s a huge waste to spend $60-80 billion in order to help the wealthiest 0.2 percent of households while we have soaring deficits and high unemployment.