With the 2006 General Assembly session scheduled to adjourn tomorrow, death tax repeal legislation remains unresolved. We encourage you, if you have not already done so in the last week, to contact your Senator and Delegate urging them to support full repeal and oppose partial repeal plans that will leave many family farmers and small businesses under the threat of the death tax.

Especially if one of them is a conferee on the budget or the death tax repeal legislation, it is important for you to touch base with them to urge support for FULL repeal of the death tax.

1. You can click here and go to our website to send an email to your Senator and Delegate, as well as the budget conferees.


2. You can refer to the list below of budget and death tax legislation conferees.


3. You can call (800) 889-0229 and leave a message for your Senator and Delegate, as long as you call between 9am and 5pm today!

We remain optimistic that the strong support shown by the Speaker of the House and the entire House of Delegates as well as a number of Senators on both sides of the aisle, including Senator Norment, Senator Stosch, Senator Wampler and Senator Houck, will help secure passage of legislation to fully repeal the unfair death tax in Virginia.

And, while it appears that the legislative session may be extended to address transportation budget issues, we remain optimistic that the House and Senate will come to consensus on a state budget.

The General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn tomorrow, Saturday, March 11. However, there is growing expectation that the $75 billion budget will remain unresolved. Included in unresolved issues is the question of reducing the tax burden by $98 million by repealing the death tax. Death tax repeal in 2007 represents about 1/750th of the biennial state budget. We hope they can find a way to squeeze this relief into the budget.

If the General Assembly adjourns without a budget, we will have to go back through the committee process, starting from scratch. We will need the Senate Finance Committee and the House Finance Committee, and both the full Senate and the full House, to endorse repeal once again.

If the General Assembly merely extends the legislative session by a few days or weeks, our bills can stay alive in conference committee and still be discussed, particularly by budget conferees.

We will continue to update you on where the issue stands in the coming days.

Delegates Vince Callahan and Leo Wardrup both serve as budget conferees for the state budget and endorsed full repeal of the death tax by being co-patrons to HB 40. Other members of the House budget team have consistently endorsed full repeal over the years.

Of the five members of the Senate budget conference team, Senator Edd Houck (D), Senator Chuck Colgan (D), Senator Walter Stosch (R ) and Senator William Wampler (R) endorsed FULL repeal of the death tax by being co-patrons of Senator Tommy Norment's SB 504. In fact, Stosch spoke out with concerns about the partial repeal bill endorsed by the Senate.

In all, over 30 Delegates and 24 Senators endorsed full repeal of the death tax by serving as co-patrons of SB 504 or HB 40. We hope this common sense majority will continue to work to find consensus around FULL repeal of the death tax by 2007.