To the Editor:

Your editorial usefully draws attention to the “estate tax mess” but overlooks the moral hazard created when Congress adjusted estate tax rates in 2001.

By repealing the estate tax for those who die in 2010, but maintaining pre-2001 estate tax rates for those who die in 2011 and thereafter, Congress created a situation where heirs to large estates stand to inherit a windfall for a death in the next 12 months, but much less for a death after Dec. 31, 2010.

For most heirs, the idea of doing anything to hasten the death of a loved one would be unthinkable. Still, as your recent article on end-of-life choices (“Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death: Drug-Induced Sleep,” “Months to Live” series, front page, Dec. 27) illustrates, family members are increasingly involved in difficult decisions that affect the timing of a patient’s death.

Our country’s tax policies should not be tilting those decisions in the wrong direction.

Jerome S. Fortinsky
Larchmont, N.Y., Dec. 28, 2009

If I slip a granny a little too much medication this year it will be the fault of the evil government that gave me overwhelming incentives to do so.

You're a big boy Jerome. I am sure that you can do the right thing. If you can't that is your problem and the problem of the fine upstanding family that raised you.