The following bill passed the House today: Permanent Estate Tax Relief For Families, Farmers, and Small Businesses Act of 2009 (H.R. 4154). It froze the exemption from estate tax at the current level of $3.5 million. It if hadn't passed, under previous legislation all estate tax would have disappeared. So we are between a rock and a hard place. People can inherit $3.5 million - that's money not earned by virtue of any work - and still pay no taxes. And we are supposed to celebrate that as a victory because estate tax didn't totally disappear. (I am writing this as someone who has no access to inheritance, since any money earned by my father went to the nursing home care of his father.)