Making headlines

Tax blogger Robert Flach recently mentioned the long-running television series Law & Order. The other day, I heard about a recent episode ("The Taxman Cometh") where the motive turned out to be timing a person's death to avoid the estate tax. (They may have gotten the idea from the Colbert Report.)

Maybe if the estate tax keeps making headlines, it will actually get addressed by Congress. Just maybe...

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Tax is cool

Now that it's gone away, the estate tax is getting a lot of attention.

Tax experts sharing their thoughts on the estate tax include Joe Kristan, Kay Bell, Linda Beale, James Maule, TaxProf Paul Caron, and I'm sure many others I've missed in my latest search.

But the talk isn't limited to us talk folk. Last week, Stephen Colbert did a bit on the estate tax.

"As of January 1, 2010, the 45% tax on massive inheritances is gone. But it will come back in 2011. So wouldn't this be a great year to visit your lonely, frail, unhealthy uncle? And just be by his side to make sure no one coats his banister with teflon, or hides a rabid badger in his applesauce, or replaces his Werther's Originals with Werther's Explodables."

That's right people, tax is cool.

Here's the clip from The Colbert Report last week. The estate tax bit starts at around 48 seconds in.

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