Wealth and Our Commonwealth

November 25, 2002
Gates, whose son cofounded Microsoft and became the wealthiest man on the planet, teams up with Collins, program director of the nonprofit United for a Fair Economy and Responsible Wealth, to explain why the government should continue to levy estate taxes on the fortunes of America's wealthiest citizens (which President Bush, advocating its elimination, has provocatively called the "death tax"). In reviewing the tax's history, the authors explain the Founding Fathers' concern with maintaining conditions of equitability that would enable any American with sufficient ambition and perseverance to accumulate a fortune within his lifetime without creating a new aristocracy. The robber barons of the Gilded Age thwarted those intentions, so the estate tax was established in 1916. The tax was controversial from its inception, and the authors reveal how carefully orchestrated efforts by a handful of wealthy families, think tanks and PR firms drummed up public opposition in the 1990s, even though the tax didn't apply to most Americans. Congress voted to repeal the estate tax in 2001. It's bad enough, Gates and Collins argue, that the government will lose $30 billion a year over the next decade because of the repeal; the loss is particularly keen given the cost of cleaning up after the September 11 attacks and fighting the subsequent war on terrorism. They've prepared an earnest manifesto, which may seem like locking the barn doors after the horse has fled, but this book could help create a sympathetic public perception by 2011, when, in a bizarre legal twist, the estate tax goes back on the books. (Jan. 16)Forecast:The Gates name will guarantee media attention and sales for this.