Estate tax reduction draws vocal supporters

Robert and Lynda Barnett worry another chunk of their farm will die when they do.

State and federal estate taxes forced Lynda and her sister to sell off two pieces of the family ranch in Burlington after their parents died years ago. They were still fighting tax collectors 10 years later.

"They just ate us alive," Robert Barnett said Tuesday, surrounded by several state lawmakers, farm officials and Gov. Frank Keating.

The Barnetts were in Oklahoma City to support the governor's push to reduce the state death tax. A bill authored by Rep. Clay Pope, D- Loyal, would make Oklahoma follow the federal government's guidelines on the estate tax.

The federal government does not tax the first $675,000 of an inheritance. Officials are implementing a sliding scale that eventually will mean the IRS won't tax the first $1 million.

Oklahoma already follows the federal guidelines when direct descendants inherit a family farm or business. But the state starts taxing the first dollar inherited by non-direct descendants, including siblings.

Thirty-three states, including all the ones surrounding Oklahoma, already mirror the federal government's tax system.

"Death taxes are unconscionable," Keating said. "It is unfair, unwise and wholly burdensome for hard-working Oklahomans to be smacked with taxes at the exact time they are mourning the death of a loved one."

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