Oh, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Tax season! Time to roll up those sleeves and start organizing your receipts, filling out piles and piles of maddening forms, selling your multimillion-dollar condo to your own wife…

Oh, you didn’t have to do that last one? New York Times publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr. just did! The New York Observer says:

According to a deed filed in city records this afternoon (2/29), Mr. Sulzberger transferred ownership of his family’s A-line duplex to his wife, the artist Gail Gregg, for $3,255,721. The apartment is in Harperley Hall, a stately pre-war co-op at 64th Street and Central Park West.

Ms. Gregg and her son, a reporter, would not comment. Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis, when asked if Mr. Sulzberger and his wife are separating, said this was done for estate-planning purposes and wouldn’t comment further.

Why might a transfer like this make sense for estate planning? Real estate attorney Rob Frankel gave this scenario: “Let’s say I’m either older or more sickly, or we think I’m going to die first. There’s going to be an advantage to you if I owned it alone and left it to you, because you inherit it at the value at the time of my death, and you don’t have to pay taxes based on how much we bought it for.”

To give you an idea how much money Pinch & Family could be saving, Madonna has a similar-sized apartment in the same building and briefly put it on the market for $6.75 mil back in ‘97.

So, estate planning, huh? As in, making sure as little of your money as possible goes to the government when you die. It makes sense that the publisher of the NYT would want the IRS to keep its grubby hands off his stack, right?

Whoops!

For the fourth time in four years, the House of Representatives has passed a bill calling for the permanent repeal of the federal estate tax. The Senate should put a stop to this silliness. The only thing driving the push for repealing the estate tax is ideology. It sure isn’t sound tax policy…

Repeal would shield the estates of the very wealthiest Americans from the tax. That’s the same group that already benefits the most from Mr. Bush’s tax breaks for dividends and capital gains.

Repeal of the estate tax was deemed too expensive in 2001, when the government was still enjoying the Clinton-era budget surplus. So it stands to reason that it’s out of the question today, as America’s enormous deficits weaken the domestic economy and the country’s international economic leadership. But to its proponents, estate-tax repeal is the holy grail of the Republican anti-tax crusade.

The most commonly heard argument against the estate tax — that it represents unfair double taxation — is specious. First, the estate tax does not even kick in until the assets left at death exceed $1.5 million, or $3 million per married couple — and those exemption amounts will more than double by 2009. So most Americans never even have to think about the estate tax, let alone worry about it coming on top of some other tax.

–”Long Live the Estate Tax,” New York Times editorial, 4/15/05

Yep, the only ones who don’t like the estate tax are those evil Republicans… and good ol’ Pinch.

(Hat tip: NY Sun)