House Republican leaders have scheduled a vote this week to abolish the estate tax permanently.

Under a provision of the 2001 tax cut designed to disguise the law's full cost, Congress voted to make the estate tax go away in 2010, but come back in full force in 2011.

Fewer than 1 percent of the people who died in 2004 paid an estate tax, and half the revenue from the tax came from estates valued at $10 million or more.

Because the wealthy have gotten wealthier over the past three decades or so, the estate tax produces a lot of money.

Some of the talk about Democrats reaching a "compromise" with the Republicans on the estate tax involve repealing 80 to 90 percent of the estate tax.