After reading Natureboy's post, and then reading the article by cb7893, I learned some things. First, Natureboy's numbers are woefully destructive fiscally. Second, I then read Dr. Harl's comments...very informative (a fascinating gent, with a JD, and Ph.D.). A few observations...this was six years ago and the estate taxes for a "family-owned farm" (not a corporation, LLC, etc.) were only due for farmers with estates of greater than $5.49 million ($10.98 million for a married couple). For 2023, the estate tax threshold is $12,920,000.00 for single and I'm guessing double that for married couples (I can EASILY be wrong about that part).
Does that mean the “family farm” can’t be lost? No, but it’ll take a bigger farm to get slapped by Uncle Samuel (and it shouldn’t be). Still, if the family has one of those really large farms and if it's kept "in the family" and it’s a risk, then those would be the farms that would commonly form family corporations, using the tax code and established legal mechanisms that allow for a transfer of land and equipment to their heirs before death, among other legal actions. All in the tax code.
Lastly, reading all I did caused me to ask myself some questions that I had not considered. "Why should the government be able to take away a large part of an inheritance that has already been taxed? Why should it be able to penalize the family and potentially destroy a livelihood, because someone died? And why would it want to do that?
Great discussion thoughts.