The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas is submitting letters to the U.S. Senate and has launched a marine retailer grass roots campaign to kill the Death Tax.

MRAA supports a forthcoming bill to be introduced by Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) to permanently repeal the Death Tax.

MRAA has long worked this issue and our efforts have been key in passage of several bills over the past 20 years that have increased the threshold and decreased the tax rate. However, those bills have now sunset and new efforts are needed to kill the Death Tax.

The Thune bill already has 20 co-sponsors. A companion bill (H.R. 1259) has also been introduced in the House by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) with 205 co-sponsors.

The Death Tax was originally passed by Congress in the 1890s to pay for the Spanish American War. The tax hurts the beneficiaries of small businesses and family farms who have to pay a high tax on inheritances when the assets were already built on income that had been taxed.