Bill Gates Sr. Brings Estate Tax Crusade To Farmers Union

Congress Daily • March 3, 2003

By Jerry Hagstrom

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Bill Gates Sr., the Seattle lawyer and father of the Microsoft founder, brought his campaign against the permanent repeal of the estate tax to the National Farmers Union convention here Sunday. Gates told convention delegates that the Gallo wine and Mars candy families had started the campaign to end the estate tax in the early 1990s, but had found they had "an image problem" and decided "to make farmers the public relations icon" of the campaign. Gates said farmers would benefit more from the Senate Democrats' reform proposal that would raise the exemption to $4 million per estate than from repeal. Gates said he "is sympathetic to the occasional case of the large farmer with the illiquid farm," but that he believes most can solve that problem with estate planning. Of the pro-repeal stand taken by the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Gates suggested farmers are being used. Advocates of repeal "are willing to hold the farmers hostage," he said. Gates said Farm Bureau "did not inform their members of the reform measures that were proposed."

Pat Wolff, a tax specialist with the Farm Bureau, told CongressDaily today that the reform and repeal proposals have been debated at national Farm Bureau conventions, but that members have repeatedly voted to support repeal. The National Farmers Union, by contrast, opposes the tax's repeal. Gates and National Farmers Union President David Frederickson both said they fear that if approved, Congress will eventually make up for the lost income by increasing taxes on middle- and lower-income farmers and owners of small businesses. Gates emphasized that the estate tax applies only to the richest 2 percent of the population. Gates also said he believes U.S. laws and government-sponsored institutions such as universities and research facilities have created conditions for individuals to become richer in the United States than elsewhere. "People with large wealth ... have a special obligation to the society in which they grew up," Gates said. "Anybody who thinks they're so great they did it on their own should be exiled to West Africa."

Gates appeared at the Farmers Union convention with Lee Farris, a representative of United for a Fair Economy, a group that is opposing repeal of the estate tax. Farris said heirs could be hurt by repeal, because it includes changes in the basis for taxation that could result in higher capital gains taxes.

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