In discussions with senior members of both the House and Senate, legislators are saying that they continue to keep death tax repeal as a major issue in debating the budget. Indications from House and Senate conferees are that they hope to repeal the death tax fully during the current special session of the General Assembly.

Please be sure to keep in touch with your legislators in the House and Senate to let them know that repeal of the unfair death tax remains a priority for you. You can email your legislators by clicking here.

Tell them not to forget repeal of the death tax is important to businesses like yours.

Remind them that the cost of avoiding the death tax takes money away from hiring new employees, retaining employees in competitive markets and prevents you as an employer from providing or expanding health insurance benefits for your employees, further straining the state's healthcare budget.

Remind them that while Virginia has a reputation as a business friendly state that other states like Florida who do not collect the death tax or income taxes are increasingly becoming a haven for those who can relocate. Remind them how unfair it is to collect this tax after you and your family have been paying taxes on real estate, personal property and income all of your life.

Remind them that with increasingly robust tax collections now is the best time to eliminate this tax.

Remind them that they supported full repeal of the death tax in 2003 when the biennial state budget was $60 billion. The budget for 2007-08 will be over $75 billion, an increase of $15 billion. Urge them to use just a portion of that growth to pay to repeal Virginia's unfair death tax.

You can contact your legislators and the legislative leadership by clicking here.

It may get a little confusing with the constant changes you may read about in the paper. We have tried to provide a brief capsule to you outlining where the House and Senate stand from a procedural standpoint in the current budget discussions.

Status of House budget that includes full repeal of the death tax: Passed the House and currently in Senate Finance Committee, not yet considered by the committee. The House includes about $100 million in reduced tax collections in their $75.4 billion budget in consideration of full repeal of the death tax.

Status of Senate budget that includes partial repeal of the death tax: Passed the Senate and currently in House Appropriations. The Senate includes a little under $60 million in reduced revenue in their $75.9 billion budget to repeal the death tax.

Status of legislation specifically repealing the death tax: The Senate has included partial repeal of the death tax in their budget document. The House has not voted on legislation to repeal the death tax because they feel it is unconstitutional to include such legislation in the state budget and not as a stand alone bill . We have been assured by key legislators that when the time is appropriate that they will submit for consideration legislation to repeal the death tax.

We need your help to remind them to do so! Please contact your legislators by clicking here.

A vote on permanent repeal or reduction of the death tax at the federal level likely will take place in May or June according to news we picked up at the National Death Tax Summit held in Washington, DC, on Tuesday of this week.

Speakers including US Senator John Kyl (Arizona), US Rep. Kenny Hulshof (Missouri) and Al Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and National Economic Council Director, reaffirmed strong support for repeal or reduction of the federal death tax.

Some in Washington are taking an approach supporting a reduction of the death tax from about 50 percent of an estate's value to 15 percent of an estate's value. If this approach is taken and if the Virginia General Assembly fails to repeal the unfair state death tax:

-Virginia's death tax will be higher than the federal tax if the Virginia General Assembly fails to repeal our unfair state death tax .

- If Virginia fails to repeal our death tax and the feds reduce theirs, the tax burden on family farmers and small business owners will be twice as much in Virginia as most other states. This is unfair and anti-business.

-While the wealthy will move to other states or use high priced lawyers and accountants to avoid the tax, family businesses in Virginia will be forced to pay the tax or take out expensive policies to protect their business and families.

Regardless of the outcome of federal efforts in the next month, it is imperative that the Virginia General Assembly decide in the coming weeks to endorse FULL repeal of Virginia's unfair death tax. Creating special classes that force many families to pay this tax while others are exempt is unfair and bad for working families.

Thanks to all of you who wrote in with comments and ideas for us.

This week we would appreciate it if you would send a copy of this email to your email list and urge your friends, neighbors and business colleagues to contact their legislators and urge them to repeal Virginia's death tax.

Thanks again for your continued support of efforts to repeal this unfair tax.