It wasn’t quite Hamlet’s soliloquy on mortality, but Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross got philosophical in his opposition to the federal estate tax the Trump administration wants to repeal.

“It’s bad enough that you have to die,” Ross, 79, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “You shouldn’t be fined for doing so.”

The tax framework released by the White House and Republican leaders last month calls for repealing the estate tax -- a 40 percent levy applied to estates worth more than $5.49 million for individuals or $10.98 million for couples.

Although Republicans say it penalizes small businesses and farmers, data from 2013 show that just 3 percent of estates subject to the tax were businesses and farms, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Ross said repealing the levy would help small businesses that are passed on to family members. And he questioned whether it’s fair for heirs to pay tax on income that may have already been taxed. “Is there any fairness to having just one portion of the population pay a death tax on values that largely have already been taxed?”