The tax bill now making its way to President Clinton calls for eliminating the estate tax on the wealthy. In force for 83 years, this tax has never worked as intended but there are good reasons to argue that its loopholes should be closed, and the tax itself significantly raised. PNS commentator Roy Ulrich is a public interest lawyer and consumer advocate who sits on the Board of Directors of the California Tax Reform Association.

The Republican tax plan that will be put on Mr. Clinton's desk calls for the elimination of the estate tax on the wealthy by 2009. That's one reason he has his veto pen in hand ready to use.

This tax has not received adequate public attention. It imposes "a tax on the transfer of the taxable estate of every citizen or resident of the United States" -- in other words, someone must die before the tax can be collected.

It was enacted by Congress in 1916 to break up great concentrations of wealth before they were passed on to the next generation -- so America wouldn't look like Europe in this regard.

But a glance at the Forbes Magazine's annual list of the richest 400 Americans shows this mission has not been accomplished -- almost 45 percent of those on the list achieved that status at birth.

The main reason for this failure is that so few estates actually pay the tax -- of the approximately 2.2 million Americans who die each year, only 25,000 (just a fraction over one percent) actually owes any estate tax. That's why it accounts for less than one percent of federal revenues, or $19 billion.

Proponents of repeal like to talk about a small farmer who is forced to sell the family farm to pay the estate tax. But family farms and small businesses make up only one in 20 of the estate tax filers each year.

The law allows $600,000 to be passed on tax-free. Because the tax doesn't hit until the second spouse dies, that translates to $1.2 milion for a married couple. My own personal definition of a small farm would not include one valued at $1.2 million.

What is more, the estate tax is so full of loopholes that, for example, the heirs of Warren Buffett -- who, with $5 billion, holds the number two spot on the Forbes 400 list -- will pay no estate tax. A special provision in the current bill, added by Democratic Sen. Bob Kerry of Nebraska(Buffet's home state), guarantees this.

The favorite loophole of the rich is to hire private appraisers who undervalue real estate and other hard assets passed on to survivors. The Internal Revenue Service lacks the financial resources to hire an adequate number of its own qualified appraisers who might otherwise determine a fair value for the property.

In addition, it is relatively easy for the super-rich to pay no estate tax at all by simply setting up a foundation to hold assets to be operated by their children at multi-million dollar salaries. Since the assets do not actually pass on to the kids, it avoids the tax entirely. This happens to be the perfectly legal scam being employed by the aforementioned Mr. Buffett.

Indeed, a strong argument can be made that the estate tax rate ought to be increased for the super-wealthy (say estates valued at over $15 million) -- for reasons best expressed early this century by the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. In his book The Gospel of Wealth, he wrote, "The parent who leaves his child enormous wealth generally deadens the talents and energies of the child, and tempts him or her to lead a less useful and worthy life than he or she otherwise would."

In other words, our society might expect greater productivity from the children of the super-rich if tax rates on high-end estates were increased and loopholes eliminated. My guess is few Americans would shed a tear if those people on the Forbes 400 who have inherited their wealth were asked to pay a higher estate tax.

Death and taxes, it turns out, make a great combination. If they went together more often, the rest of us could get a tax cut.