A footnote in the President’s new budget, “A New Era of Responsibility Renewing America’s Promise,” p. 121, Table S5, fn. 1 (Feb. 26, 2009), is available at http://www.budget.gov.
The summary tables at the end of the budget proposal states that the financial results of the budget are calculated presuming, among other things, that the estate taxes are projected to continue through 2019 and that “[i]n continuing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the estate tax is maintained at its 2009 parameters.
NOTE
This suggests that the President’s fundamental estate tax proposal will be to make the 2009 estate tax rules permanent, with a $3.5 million applicable exclusion amount and GST exemption, $1 million gift tax exclusion amount, a 45 percent tax rate and adjusted basis equal to estate tax values. It still remains to be seen whether Congress decides that further refinements are required, and addresses such questions as portability of the marital deduction, continued deductibility of state death taxes, valuation discounts, and parity between the gift and estate tax computations