Sometimes I feel that the estate planning community is like a hive of bees on a deserted island.  Amongst ourselves, we can get to buzzing pretty loudly.  Yet the mainstream is so far removed no one there hears a thing. 

That's my take on the current mess we're in regarding the estate tax.  Those of us who handle estate planning day in and day out can't believe how ridiculous things are right now.  But it doesn't affect most people's everyday lives, and those who are affected are often so deep in their grief and/or fear that they just chalk it up to another way in which the world is topsy turvy.  After all, facing your own mortality or the loss of a loved one already makes the world seem unjust and irrational.

But here in our busy hive, we realize that few people are going to be happy if Congress doesn't act and act soon.  Those who wish to eliminate the estate tax will see all their efforts for naught when the tax comes back in 2011 worse than ever.  That's why Hahn's Estate Planning Blog noted a Business Week article entitled Business Lobbyists Push To Revive Estate Tax They Tried To Kill. Apparently, lobbyists that purport to represent the business community are finally starting to see the light and seek estate tax reform.  Realizing that they cannot get full and permanent estate tax repeal in this political environment, they are pushing to turn back the clock to 2009 when the estate tax affected fewer people than at any other time in the last few decades. 

I am continually asked what I think will happen.  I know that people question me because they know I am following this closely.  But I have to tell them that my crystal ball is broken.  If I had to guess (and in my field I'm often expected to guess about the future), I would guess that we won't have any significant tax law changes.  With the budget deficit looming and more federal spending on the horizon, I think the easiest thing a legislator can do is to do nothing.  If no action is taken we have a tax increase that wasn't initiated by the current administration but instead was a ticking time bomb planted by the previous administration.

 I don't know what will happen because no one, not even those sitting in Congress, knows what will happen.  I only know something should happen, and soon.  If nothing changes then people who die at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2009 will have their estates treated very differently than those who die a minute later.  Not only is that not fair, but it's dangerous.  We're encouraging people to die this year and only this year.

So, who wins?  The politicians, perhaps.  Oh... and maybe estate planning lawyers.  But I don't want this kind of victory.