Babies, Bathwater, and Family Forests

[Imported from somewhere less pseudonymous]

Anyone remember the estate tax hullabaloo a while back? Were they trying to reduce it or eliminate it? What ever happened with that? I recall my position being a unilateral, "Fuck you, give the government money." I stand by that position in the case of people who are money-rich; I maintain that the people who benefit the most from our economic and societal systems should pay the most to maintain them. However it's recently come to my attention that the tax is in need of a bit of reform.

The existing combination of estate and property tax systems disincentivizes ecological conservation. The estate tax hits people who inherit chunks of wilderness disproportionately hard and a lot of the time they end up having to sell the land to pay the tax on it. When you need to sell a big chunk of the middle of nowhere in a hurry (estate taxes come due 9 months after the owner's death), timber companies and "developers" are the ones most likely to buy. These people think the estate tax should be immediately and permanently repealed for this reason. Their site says that the estate tax generates about 1.5% of annual federal revenues; that's an awful big baby to throw out with the bathwater. It seems to me entirely feasible to alter the estate tax code to provide exemptions or breaks for people inheriting wilderness. Several states, for example, have tax breaks for people who own undeveloped land and file a conservation plan, or assess the value of undeveloped land by its current use instead of its "best potential use" (best potential use, it is implied, is the standard M.O. I really don't know.) Does this create the possibility for abuse? Sure! But what tax law doesn't? I just want more forests to stay standing and less wetlands drained to make room for malls.