DEATH AND LOWER TAXES

THE ESTATE LEVY SEEMS SURE TO BE CUT AS MORE NONPLUTOCRATS DISCOVER IT WILL HIT THEIR KIDS TOO

Robert Hartman had not looked at his will in 17 years. But when his first grandchild was born, he decided to update it, and he made a nasty discovery. A former assistant director for the Congressional Budget Office, Hartman, now 59 and retired, says, "I kind of knew" that only the first $600,000 of an individual's estate is exempt from federal estate tax. But, he says, "like most people, I didn't really focus on it. Then I sat down to do the math [on how much of his estate might go to the IRS rather than to his two sons] and...

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