Replacing the estate tax with fair (no step-up) capital gains taxation at death could raise revenue for tax reform, and get rid of complex tax avoidance schemes

Among the many changes proposed among the Trump and GOP tax plans is the end of the estate tax – long a cherished Republican goal. Today’s Republicans decry the estate tax as a form of double taxation, while proponents (including Republican President Teddy Roosevelt) view it as a means to prevent an aristocracy formed through inter-generational wealth transfer.

What’s overlooked in the estate tax debate is that there’s a simple solution at hand, if we just look north, to Canada. This may be surprising to many Americans, but in the early 1970s Canada repealed its estate tax, replacing it with a simple application of capital gains taxes.

Canada applies its capital gains tax to an estate by assuming that the assets have been sold on the date of the owner’s death. Instead of taxing an estate in a special way, a consistent application of the existing capital gains tax serves to eliminate loopholes (in particular by eliminating step-up basis) and raise revenue while also substantially lowering the top rate of tax on estates. If transfers of ownership are treated as taxable for capital gains purposes, this eliminates the use of trusts and step-up basis as a multi-generational tax avoidance scheme, since tax would be paid on any change of ownership, including when assets are transferred into the trust.

Instead of exempting substantially all estates (as with current law), a capital gains tax-based approach could simply apply current capital gains brackets. The top rate of 23.8% would represent a reduction of over 50% from current rates. This change could generate substantial revenue to enable other aspects of tax reform – in the year 2000, when the estate tax exemption was $1.3M for a couple, it generated $25B per year in revenue (after substantial exclusions, credits, and deductions). With the economy today 90% larger than in 2000, it’s likely that a similar tax would generate nearly $50B today. Elimination of step-up basis could double this figure by adding another $50B – and $100B per year would pay for a huge chunk of current Republican plans on business tax reform, without penalizing most individuals.

Unfortunately, Republicans are fixated on ending the “death” tax and ramming through their current plan, while Democrats are interested in keeping top estate tax rates in place – when a broader capital-gains based approach would be fairer and would generate more revenue. Hardly the last time a good moderate approach is left to die in our polarized political climate!