New Year's Countdown

The House quickly passed a bill that makes permanent the estate tax with the current exemption (no index for inflation). The Senate has similar, if slightly more generous, legislation it's considering.

Under current law, the tax disappears in 2010, and then comes back in 2011, with a much smaller exemption.

I highly recommend Congress act on this one way or another, and soon. The key here is consistency. If nothing happens, I can imagine an awful lot of anxious people next December 31st wondering if they should pull the plug.