In Throw Momma From the Train, Danny DeVito plays a student who convinces his English teacher to swap murders. If the teacher (played by Billy Crystal) kills DeVito’s grouchy mother, DeVito will kill Crystal’s ex-wife. The plot focuses mainly on the former of these murders and hence the movie’s title.

2010 is the year of Throw Momma From the Train.

If someone with an estate worth over $3.5 million (about 5,500 American taxpayers, or less than .002 percent of the entire population) passed away at 11:59:59 p.m. on December 31, 2009, their estate would be subject to a 45% tax. If they happen to pass away a second later, at 12:00:00 a.m. on January 1, 2010, the estate will owe nothing. Unless Congress acts, the rate will remain at zero percent until 12:00:00 a.m. on January 1, 2011, when the rate will jump to 55 percent.

This crazy loophole came to fruition out of congressional politicking and incompetence. Republicans actually created the estate tax loophole in the first place as part of the Bush tax cuts. Calculating that once the tax was eliminated it would be politically untenable to reinstate it, the Republican-controlled Legislature voted in 2001 to slowly reduce the rate and then eliminate the tax altogether in 2010. In order to keep the cost of the cuts to a reasonable level, they were made temporary with a ten-year window, with the expectation that they would be extended later.

For a variety of reasons–especially budget concerns and President Obama campaigning for their repeal–that never happened. On came 2009 with the Democrats in power, and everyone assumed they would pass at least a temporary fix to the estate tax loophole before recessing for the holidays. It never came (thanks to the Senate), and now we face a tax loophole that means $25 billion to the federal government and millions to the heirs of the 5,500 uber-rich individuals that would qualify for the tax. Those wealthy individuals better watch their backs and stay off moving trains next year.