The Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon was joined by representatives of the state Farm Bureau and the National Federation of Independent Business at the Monday unveiling of a new report, “New York’s Death Tax: The Case for Killing It.”

The report boosts Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal, contained in his executive budget proposal, to raise the threshold on the state’s current estate tax from $1 million to almost $6 million after a five-year phase-in — matching the federal threshold (currently $5.34 million, and indexed to inflation). Also, the maximum rate would be lowered from 16 percent to 10 percent.

McMahon noted that because of the disparity between the federal and the state estate tax thresholds, New York’s tax hit more estates in 2012 than the federal government taxed nationally — almost 4,000.

The change to the state tax would knock out some 90 percent of estates subject to the tax in 2013, the Empire Center concludes.

“Far from being limited to what we would think of as the super-wealthy, the estate tax hits a growing number of middle- and upper-middle-class households and small businesses and farmers,” said McMahon.

He continued:

” … When we have debates in Albany about millionaires … almost invariably people are referring to number of people who earn $1 million of income. But in fact the dictionary meaning of ‘millionaire’ and the estate tax definition of ‘millionaire’ is somebody who has more than $1 million in assets — that is, what’s their home worth, what’s their life insurance worth, what’s saved up in their IRA, what’s their business worth if they own one? … And in that case, there’s well over half a million New Yorkers who share in assets of $1 million or more.”

McMahon noted that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s home in Park Slope, purchased for roughly $700,000 in 2006, is now assessed at $1.4 million.

He called it a competitive issue: New York is one of 14 states that continue to tax estates.

Jeff Williams, director of public policy for the Farm Bureau, said the estate tax made life difficult for farm families who are “land-rich, cash-poor,” and hastened the transfer of farmland to non-agricultural purposes such as housing developments.

Mike Durant, state director of the NFIB, said the change would enhance the “multi-generational” nature of many small businesses in New York — especially upstate.

“We’re very disappointed that the rhetoric on this issue has taken the form of ’1 percent/99 percent’ class warfare,” Durant said. “From our point of view, this issue is farmers, it is small business, it is hard-working New Yorkers that are struggling in a state that is over-regulated and over-taxed already. The status quo is unsustainable.”

McMahon, a vocal critic of Cuomo’s property tax proposals, called the estate tax reforms the “purest play” — the most sound — among the proposed tax cuts in the executive budget.