Thanks to our March guest bloggers, Louis Andrew ‘66 and 3L Nicholas Harken. Our April bloggers will be Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and Keith Richards.  Okay, that was indeed a lame April’s Fools joke.  But we can no doubt expect an interesting month from Eric Pearson ’07 and 1L Joseph Schuster.  Richards will not actually be blogging here until next month, when he is in town to pick up his honorary degree at the Law School’s graduation ceremony.

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, passed in the first year of the Bush 43 presidential term, was intended to respond to the cry for estate-tax repeal from numerous Republican lobbies.  The Act set in motion the gradual relaxation of the tax by going through a series of every-other-year increases in the amount of the exemption available to taxpayers, which was initially $1 million and reached $3.5 million in 2009. The Act also lowered the top tax rate starting in the first year from 55 percent to 45 percent. But then the Act provided for the elimination of the estate tax in 2010. Yes, the federal estate tax completely disappeared on January 1, 2010.

But that’s not the end of the story.

On January 1, 2011, the Estate Tax reappears.  The exemption level goes back to $1 million, as it was in 2001, and the rate goes back up to 55 percent.

The thought, of course, was that Congress would act.

Our guest bloggers in March will be Louis J. Andrew ’66 and 3L Nicholas Harken.  Many thanks to our February bloggers, Professor Nadelle Grossman, Anthony Murdock ‘06, and 1L Ashanti Cook.  Beware the Ides!