Nothing taxes a Deere like the federal government

The federal death tax is alive and well, especially after being mentioned on the campaign trail. 

The death tax or estate tax has been around for years, and this week Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he wanted to eliminate the tax.

Jim Martin of 60 Plus Association likes the idea.

"It's a burden on middle-class families and on small businesses, but not the super-rich," says Martin.

The top federal estate tax is around 40 percent, and this year the estate tax exemption is $5.45 million per individual. In other words, a married couple would be able to keep $10.9 million from the federal estate tax.

That may seem like a lot but Palmer Schoening of Family Business Coalition says it's not difficult for a family business or a family farm to be over the exemption when you consider the value of real estate, inventory and equipment.  

"The problem that we have, our family businesses have, is they tend to be inventory heavy but cash poor, especially in the case of a family farmer," Schoening says. "Think about some of the farm equipment. A combine can cost over $300,000."

Liberals and left-leaning special interest groups say the estate tax is good.

For example, Tax Justice Blog, a project of Citizens For Tax Justice and the Institute On Taxation And Economic Policy, says the death tax is one of the nation's most progressive revenue sources, even calling it an important complement to our income tax system and a critical source of federal revenue.

Martin disagrees. So does Schoening. 

"I don't think Tax Justice has ever seen a tax they don't want to raise," says Schoening. "Beyond that, the death tax raises less than 1 percent of federal revenue, and to put that in perspective, the government spends that amount of money in less than two days." 

Even if the federal death tax is eliminated, next year or beyond, groups for or against the death tax will still have something to fight over. Some states still have a death tax, inheritance tax or both.