BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - The number of Alabama families that have
had to pay federal estate taxes has dropped steadily this decade.

IRS data shows families paying the tax has dropped from 1.2 percent of deaths in 2000 to .2 percent last year. In 2009, only 108 estates in Alabama owed the tax after a death moved the property and assets into someone else's hands through inheritance. That was down from 530 in 2000.

The decline is happening across the country. Congress in 2001 began the gradual repeal of the estate tax, and this year it is completely phased out. But that repeal expires at the end of the year.

Whether the estate tax comes back in 2011 - and at what rate - will be debated on Capitol Hill in the coming weeks.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)