WATERTOWN, Wis. — When Wisconsin farmers rallied for a Trump parade, a lot of them had the same thing on their minds: Kamala Harris’ endorsement of a change to the inheritance tax that would dramatically lower the threshold.
The Democratic nominee’s recent backing of the the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act — which would lower the estate exemption to $3.5 million from its current inflation-adjusted $13.6 million — has been little noticed in the mainstream press.
But for small farmers, it could mean the difference between keeping the property in the family — and having to gut it to pay the IRS.
“I’m 76 years old and in my senior years. We’ve worked hard. I have a farm and want to make sure that it’s passed down,” Mark Christenson, a farmer from Jefferson County, told The Post.
The local farmer said his grandson wants to take over the farm from him, but Harris’ inheritance tax plan could require his family to sell a piece of the farm in order to pay the tax bill.
Farmers are notoriously land-rich and cash poor. Even small farms can be worth millions of dollars — but 75% of Wisconsin farms take in less than $100,000 in gross income and most farm families have to rely on second and third jobs to make ends meet.
“Because of the tax burden, they can’t keep the land,” Kurth Schaefer, another Jefferson County farmer at the Trump parade told The Post. “You sell the land to pay the inheritance tax.”
While the current exemption—which sunsets in 2026—limits its impact to about 0.2% of American adults, lowering the exemption to $3.5 million will significantly increase the number of individuals impacted by the tax.
The Democrat-backed American Housing and Economic Mobility Act would use the money — plus an increase in the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% — to create a $40 billion affordable housing fund.
Schaefer talked about the contrast he saw between last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“The RNC was showing a love for the nation and future generations. Not forgetting about the past, but making an open-hand, open-door gesture,” the 36-year-old farmer said before he drove in the Trump parade.
“At the DNC, I heard a lot of sniping about what one man has done. I didn’t hear unity,” Schaefer told The Post.
Instead he heard the Democrats promise to come together to defeat “a person and an ideal.”
“That ideal happens to be what I support,” he said.
The Republican Party of Jefferson County organized the Trump parade to rally farmers and others in Watertown — which is between Milwaukee and Madison.
“Everyone involved was very excited to show that if you support Donald Trump, you’re not alone,” the County Party Chairman, Brian Norby, told The Post, noting the parade lasted about 2 hours.
Corby Davis, another parade bystander, told The Post that she’s a “huge” Trump fan.
“I think it’s great!” Davis said as the flag-draped vehicles rolled by. “Wish I would have known about it ahead of time.”
