The U.S. Senate passed the budget for next fiscal year with no Democratic support. Colorado’s two senators voted with their respective parties.
The move paves the way for tax overhaul legislation the GOP hopes to pass in the coming months.
Republican Sen. Cory Gardner joined GOP calls to repeal the estate tax. It allows a gift of up to $5.4 million to an heir with no taxes. Any amount above that is taxed.
“We have a tax that causes families to have to confront breaking up businesses that have been in the family for generations or selling off the family farm just to keep what they’ve built already paid taxes on all because somebody died,” Gardner said.
But Democrats say the estate tax impacts only a very small number of farmers, and repealing it is a giveaway to the extremely wealthy. Senator Michael Bennet says cutting corporate taxes and getting rid of the estate tax would increase the national debt by trillions of dollars.