The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' "The Estate Tax: Myths and Realities" provides a list of the top ten myths about the estate tax, and provides factual responses to counter them. The most pernicious myth is probably the third, "Many small…businesses must be liquidated to pay estate taxes". In reality, "only 80 small businesses and farm estates nationwide will owe any estate tax in 2009" (emphasis in original). In fact, the American Farm Bureau Federation admitted that they couldn’t name a single farm that has been sold to pay the estate tax. The famous "double tax" is thoroughly undermined as well. Other helpful factoids include "permanent repeal of the estate tax would cost almost $1.3 trillion over the first ten years" and that 99.7 percent of households aren’t eligible for the estate tax.
