Clinton to rip Trump’s estate tax plan as $4B break for own family

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday will criticize Donald Trump’s call to repeal the estate tax, calling it Trump’s “friends and family discount.”

Trump’s family could get a $4 billion break from the elimination of the tax, a Clinton campaign official said.

{mosads}Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, included a repeal of the estate tax in the tax plan he released last year, and he reiterated his support of repeal in an economic speech Monday in Detroit.

“American workers have paid taxes their whole lives, and they should not be taxed again at death — it’s just plain wrong,” Trump said. 

Republicans frequently call the estate tax the “death tax” and have long pushed to do away with it. The House Republicans’ tax reform blueprint also proposes eliminating the tax.

But the Clinton campaign official said that only very wealthy people would benefit from a repeal of the estate tax, and that few small businesses and farms are hurt by the tax. The official also pointed to a Congressional Budget Office report that found repealing the tax would cost about $270 billion over 10 years.

If Trump is worth more than $10 billion, as he has claimed, he would currently owe about $4 billion when he transfers his estate to his family, the Democratic campaign official said.

Currently the top statutory rate for the estate tax is 40 percent, and the first $10.9 million per couple is exempt. 

“It’s no coincidence that one of Trump’s core ideas is one that will overwhelmingly benefit the Trump Family — his own plan would save his heirs nearly $4 billion,” the official said.

Clinton has proposed restoring the estate tax to its 2009 parameters, raising the rate to 45 percent and only allowing couples to exempt $7 million. She has also proposed other tax measures aimed at making wealthy people and large corporations pay their “fair share.”

The Obama administration last week proposed rules to close a “loophole” that allows some wealthy people to pay less than they should in estate taxes.