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This story exposes how inept the Democratic Congress has been:

A Texas pipeline tycoon who died two months ago may become the first American billionaire allowed to pass his fortune to his children and grandchildren tax-free. Dan L. Duncan, a soft-spoken farm boy who started with $10,000 and two propane trucks, and built a network of natural gas processing plants and pipelines that made him the richest person in Houston, died in late March of a brain hemorrhage at 77.

He had the great luck of dying at just the right time:

Had his life ended three months earlier, Mr. Duncan's riches -- Forbes magazine estimated his worth at $9 billion, ranking him as the 74th wealthiest in the world -- would have been subject to a federal tax of at least 45 percent. If he had lived past Jan. 1, 2011, the rate would be even higher -- 55 percent.

Instead, because Congress allowed the tax to lapse for one year and gave all estates a free pass in 2010, Mr. Duncan's four children and four grandchildren stand to collect billions that in any other year would have gone to the Treasury.

And how much exactly does the Treasury receive each year from these rich estates that are taxed at death?

The Treasury collected more than $25 billion in estate taxes in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available.

And how many estates were affected by the Estate Tax? About 5,500. That's right, less than 6,000 estates in a land of 300 million Americans.

Advocates of the tax say it is unconscionable that Congressional leaders have allowed the richest Americans to reap a new tax break at a time when deficits are soaring and the income gap between wealthy and poor citizens remains near historic levels.

"The ultra-wealthy in this country will still be able to pass on enormous wealth to the next generation," said Chuck Collins, who studies income inequality and has worked with billionaires like Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates to promote an estate tax. Mr. Collins argues that the tax is a "recycling program for economic opportunity."

If you want to eliminate the estate tax, then you have to find the $25 billion from somewhere else. And the idea that the estate tax is wrong because it's just a double tax on income that was taxed earlier is just not true, since most of these wealthy estates have capital gains that were only taxed at 15% when realized. It's a tax on income that's never been taxed before.

Should the family trust sell these inherited shares, capital gains taxes would presumably be owed on the difference between Mr. Duncan's original cost, which could be quite low, and their market value when sold. Capital gains taxes are capped at 15 percent.

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