Connecticut's Estate Tax: Addressing Wealth & Income inequality Michael Enseki-Frank 1 February 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report was funded by the Stoneman Family Foundation, the Grossman Family Foundation, and the Melville Charitable Trust. Connecticut Voices for Children is grateful for its partnership with the Legislative Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School. We thank J. L. Pottenger, Jr, the Nathan Backer Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School; Ellen Scalettar, Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and Senior Fellow for Fiscal Policy at Connecticut Voices for Children; and Shelley Geballe, Assistant Professor of Clinical Public Health at Yale University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children; and Alex Knopp, Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. This report was written under the supervision of Ellen Scalettar, Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and Senior Fellow for Fiscal Policy at Connecticut Voices for Children; J.L. Pottenger, Jr., the Nathan Baker Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School; and Patrick O’Brien, Ph.D., Research and Policy Fellow – Fiscal & Economics at Connecticut Voices for Children. If you have questions about this research, contact Dr. O’Brien at
[email protected] or 203-498-4240 x 114. 2 Executive Summary Connecticut’s estate tax should be one of the most popular taxes in the state. It is a highly progressive tax that falls solely on the ultra-wealthy and raises millions of dollars for the general budget each year. Despite research that shows the estate tax has no real impact on millionaire outmigration, the myth that it does persists.