Dozens of Rich Americans Join in Fight to Retain the Estate Tax Some 120 wealthy Americans, including Warren E. Buffett, George Soros and the father of William H. Gates, are urging Congress not to repeal taxes on estates and gifts. President Bush has proposed phasing out those taxes by 2009. But a petition drive being organized here by Mr. Gates's father, William H. Gates Sr., argues that "repealing the estate tax would enrich the heirs of America's millionaires and billionaires while hurting families who struggle to make ends meet." The billions of dollars in government revenue lost "will inevitably be made up either by increasing taxes on those less able to pay or by cutting Social Security, Medicare, environmental protection and many other government programs so important to our nation's continued well-being," the petition says. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/politics/14ESTA.html?pagewanted=all