Candidates back killing estate tax

BY GREG EDWARDS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Virginia's candidates for governor promised the state's agricultural industry yesterday that they would support legislation eliminating the state's estate tax.

Getting rid of state and federal estate taxes has been a longtime goal of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation and other farm groups.

To avoid selling the farm to pay estate taxes, a farmer has to spend money for le- gal work that could be better used improving the farm, said Donna Pugh Johnson, president of the Virginia Agribusiness Council.

Democrat Timothy M. Kaine and Republican Jerry W. Kilgore said they would support the immediate abolition of the estate tax. Independent H. Russell Potts Jr. said he would support phasing it out "in a responsible, incremental manner."

Potts spoke last at the agricultural and forestry candidate forum, which was held at the State Fair. Although the crowd had thinned, Potts arguably generated more applause than the other two candidates.

"I like what Russ Potts said there," said Bennie Quesenberry, a member of the Carroll County Farm Bureau board and a beef and bee farmer. But Kilgore is a fellow Southwest Virginian, he noted.
"It's going to take me awhile to make a decision" about whom to support.

While Kaine and Kilgore focused their remarks mostly on forestry and farming issues, such as environmental regulation and the loss of farmland to development, Potts made a pitch for his $2 billion transportation plan, which he said would help farmers get their goods to market.

Potts said Democrats and Republicans have ignored the state's transportation needs during the past 20 years, leaving a huge, costly challenge. Plans by Kilgore and Kaine to use surplus general funds don't go far enough, and Kilgore's plan to regionalize transportation funding will not work, Potts said.
Kilgore and Kaine stressed family involvement in farming, and Potts emphasized that he is a businessman, not a lawyer like his opponents. All three vowed to protect private property against this year's Supreme Court ruling upholding land condemnation for development.