Four American billionaires have died so far in 2010, a year when their especially fortunate heirs may be subject to zero federal estate taxes. The estate tax was proposed a century ago by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. Thanks to a provision in Bush-era tax breaks, however, the sons and daughters of today’s super wealthy will keep billions of dollars in their trust funds and out of federal coffers. For example, unless the tax is reinstated the four children of New York Yankee’s owner George Steinbrenner, who died on Tuesday at the age of 80, could reap a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. Sen. Bernie Sanders last month proposed legislation to reinstate the estate tax. “At a time when this country has a devastatingly high rate of unemployment, a huge debt, massive unmet needs and a growing gap between the very richest people and everyone else, we are currently providing enormous tax breaks to millionaire and billionaire families,” he said.  “This is absurd!” 

“In the midst of these enormously difficult times,” Sanders added, “all Americans must accept shared responsibility. It is immoral and unfair that, while the middle class struggles to survive, millionaires and billionaires get tax breaks.”

To read more about the legislation, click here. 

To read Forbes coverage of the four U.S. billionaires who have died this year, click here.

To read about Steinbrenner and  the estate tax in The Washington Post, click here.

To read Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 “New Nationalism Speech,” click here.