The Treasury is losing an estimated $1 billion in taxes.
All future rates could be higher and the Treasury would have lost an opportunity to put out long-term paper at attractive rates.
He felt that the Treasury lost any control over the bonds immediately after they were issued.
The amount the Treasury lost was never clearly established but came to about $10 billion a year by some estimates.
Treasuries lost 3.3 percent in 1994, the worst return in the last 25 years.
By 1993, the Treasury would be losing $52 million a year from this measure.
The Treasury may lose more money because of the tax break than it would have to spend to buy the land outright, the official said.
The Treasury could lose that crucial confidence, and some of its effectiveness, with a failed intervention.
Once the estate tax was fully repealed, the Treasury would lose more than $70 billion a year in today's dollars.
The tax law was changed, after the Treasury lost more than $300 million from companies' sales of their operating losses, Federal officials say.