After the vote, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., confirmed that, saying "This won't be the last time this year the Senate votes on this important issue -- be it on the floor or in some other form," he said.

"Getting rid of the Death Tax is just too important an issue to give up so easily," he said.

Sen. Frist added, "The Death Tax is an unfair burden inflicted upon America's small businesses, farmers, and families during a time of grieving and pain."

Charles E. Symington Jr., IIABA senior vice president for government affairs and federal relations, said that "the 60-vote threshold is difficult to cross, so it was always an uphill battle to get the repeal bill through the Senate."

But he asked Sen. Frist "to continue working toward a bill that will address this important issue."

The IIABA supports elimination, or at least the significant reduction, "of estate taxes to encourage investment and growth in small businesses," Mr. Symington said.

He called repeal "crucial to the 300,000 Big "I" [IIABA] members across America, many of whom own their own agencies and whose families face significant tax burdens when these businesses are passed along to their heirs."

Mr. Symington explained, "The prospect of heavy estate taxes also diminishes the value of small businesses if they are sold."

Under present law, the threshold gradually rises from the current $1.5 million to full repeal in 2010. But, unless the law is renewed, the tax would revert to 2001 levels, a $1 million threshold per spouse and a 55 percent tax rate above that level.

The first compromise proposal likely to be taken up if the debate is renewed is a proposal by Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., the chief sponsor of reform legislation, to establish a $5 million threshold for the estate tax and tax assets above at 15 percent, the capital gains rate.

Yesterday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sought to sweeten that for Democrats by proposing to tax all assets above $30 million at 30 percent.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Senate minority leader, said, however, during the debate leading up to the cloture vote that compromise "is full repeal anyway" adding that it "doesn't even pass the laugh test," and calling it a "pig in a poke."

After the vote, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., ranking minority member on the Senate Finance Committee whose support is crucial to passage of any estate tax-related bill, said after the vote that "supporters of full repeal have known that this bill was unlikely to move forward this year.

"With the possibility of full repeal cut off, it's time to find an alternative solution that will offer relief to folks like the ranchers and farmers in my home state of Montana," he added.