August 1, 2006

The Bush administration is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to protect the interests of wealthy Americans.

It's bad enough that the president is endorsing legislation to phase out the estate tax, which applies only to the richest of the rich.

What's even worse is his plan to eliminate nearly half of the Internal Revenue Service attorneys who monitor cheating on estate taxes.

The proposal would cut the positions of 157 of the 345 lawyers working in the area of estate taxes, which are levied on those who transfer their fortunes to their heirs or others.

Veteran IRS estate tax attorney Sharyn Phillips told The New York Times that she views the proposed cuts as a "back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax."

IRS Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brown argues that, thanks to the Bush administration's changes in the law, fewer people will be subject to the tax, and therefore less monitoring is needed.

But officials at the IRS and the Treasury Department have repeatedly told Congress that tax-cheating among the wealthiest Americans is a serious and growing phenomena.

What's more, according to Brown, the average IRS estate tax lawyer finds an additional $2,200 of taxes owed to the government for each hour of work.

The administration's plan is scheduled to go into effect in less than 70 days, but almost two dozen members of Congress have asked the IRS to hold off until Congress has had the opportunity to review details of the proposal.

Meanwhile, several conservative members in the House are working to sabotage the efforts to increase in the federal minimum wage by tying that bill in with cuts on the estate tax.

The gap between rich and poor has become a grand canyon during the Bush presidency. The number of billionaires and millionaires has continued to grow, while opportunities and supports for low-income families are rapidly disappearing.

Now the president wants to let wealthy tax cheats get off without paying their fair share, and he apparently will do whatever he can -- including not enforcing the law -- to achieve that dubious goal.

Andrea Lewis is a San Francisco-based journalist and co-host of "The Morning Show" on KPFA Radio in Berkeley, Calif. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.