Yesterday, I received a mailing from my congressman informing me he is representing "our values" by again cosponsoring a bill for permanent "Repeal of the Death Tax." If he is referring to wealthy special interests, he is probably correct in stating that this effort represents "our values." If he is referring to the vast majority of his constituents, he is dead wrong. Here's why. The term "death tax" is a marketing tool used by special interests to scare Americans into thinking we are subject to a tax that will seize all our hard-earned assets when we die. I receive regular calls from people worried by this. Some have even given away needed assets. What a shame!

Besides creating needless fear, those insisting on estate-tax repeal ignore the necessary and positive social value it has provided since its enactment nearly 100 years ago. Beyond providing government revenue from those who can most afford it, this tax protects democracy by preventing dynasty building, while encouraging charitable giving. Estate-tax repeal would cost $60 billion per year in government revenues, $10 billion per year in revenues to charities, and add trillions of dollars to future deficits. The argument that tax repeal for super-rich heirs creates jobs does not consider the social utility of those jobs. Which job adds more value: serving margaritas to a rich heir or teaching a developmentally delayed child, for example?

In 2004, congressional proponents of this tax break for the ultra-wealthy succeeded in passing it in the House, largely because people believed their rhetoric. But the Senate wisely refused to go along, so the bill was defeated. Yet, proponents are undeterred. While they continue to pursue repeal, the gap between the rich and poor grows, the federal deficit has ballooned and their intransigence has prevented real and needed reform of the 2001 tax bill, as well as taking time away from meaningful discussion in Congress of other important issues.

Thankfully, during that same time, people have become more informed about the true nature of what critics of repeal are calling the "Paris Hilton Tax Break."

Meanwhile, reform of the ill-conceived 2001 tax bill is urgently needed. That bill causes instability by changing the exemption every few years and provides one year when even multi-billionaires pay no estate tax. (It's 2010, the year Jane Bryant Quinn has dubbed "Push Dad Out of the Lear-Jet Year"). It then returns the exemption amount to $1 million. It is time to end this nonsense.

We need to send this message to all our legislators: This year and no later, please pass a bill reforming the estate tax to provide an exemption that will exclude most of your constituents from the tax (probably somewhere between $2 million and $4 million per person), with an adequate tax rate for the portion of estates remaining over the exemption amount. And please keep it that way long enough that most people will forget what their estate planning attorneys look like.

This reform would exempt at least 99.65 percent of estates from taxes, while providing all the social benefits of the estate tax. It would encourage those who have acquired great wealth through the blessings of U.S. citizenship to donate it to worthy philanthropies such as UVSC, LDS Philanthropies or the Community Action Food Bank. It would promote succession planning to create stewardship for the fortunate heirs.

Let's give up the proposition that the heirs of the wealthy should inherit a windfall without any effort on their part or any responsibility to give back to the society in which they live.

Claralyn Hill is a Provo attorney, the author of a textbook on trust law, and a lecturer on estate planning.