Report: 18 Uber-Wealthy Families Led Estate Tax Repeal
The families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell?s soup, and Mars candy, among others, engaged in a deceptive, multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to repeal the tax, according to a report by two watchdog groups. It's "one of the biggest con jobs in recent history," reads the news release.The families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell?s soup, and Mars candy, among others, engaged in a deceptive, multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to repeal the tax, according to a report by two watchdog groups. It’s “one of the biggest con jobs in recent history,” reads the news release.
Your support is crucial...Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy:
WASHINGTON, D.C. ? The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.
It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.
The report profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell?s soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world?s largest retailer.
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The will signed two days before his suicide puts $577 million in assets into a trust, a roadblock to sex-abuse accusers to recover damages.
DreamWorks Studios is moving forward with its planned Martin Luther King Jr. feature film after the project suffered a setback last year because of a dispute between members of the late civil rights leader's family. On Tuesday, the studio announced that it had hired screenwriter Ron Harwood, who penned the Oscar-winning script for "The Pianist," to write the screenplay for the MLK movie.
Leona Helmsley, the recently deceased billionaire who was famous for being mean and evading taxes, left two of her grandchildren nothing but gave her dog Trouble a $12-million trust fund so it can continue to enjoy the lifestyle it has become accustomed to.
Normally, this would be cause for unbridled celebration. However, Republicans had cowardly and self-servingly tacked an estate tax reduction onto a bill designed to raise the minimum wage. So good legislation had to die in order for a terrible bill never to live.
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