Marlene Engelhorn hadn’t given much thought to the wealth that surrounded her as she grew up. She always considered the fortune, inherited from Friedrich Engelhorn, the 19th-century founder of the German chemical giant BASF, to be her family’s money rather than hers.
What? Why?
For regular people, an inheritance tax is not great. For the ultra-wealthy it should be mandatory.
Arguments against an inheritance tax:
Arguments for an inheritance tax:
Hey good thing (in the US at least), you don’t pay a dime of inheritance tax on the first $13.61 million being inherited.
So no “regular people” are paying any inheritance tax whatsoever. Americans have been fooled, again, into rallying against something that has zero direct effect on them.
I learned recently enough that this is because the Reagan administration came up with the (in fairness, an absolutely genius move given their political viewpoint) the great idea of calling it a “death tax”.
Thank you for that information. The article is about a German / Austrian woman so I was summarizing the pros and cons of an inheritance tax which might apply to any country since I don’t know the specifics of their law or why they changed it it.
That one always kills me because from the viewpoint of the one inheriting the money, the money hasn’t been taxed yet. If you were to treat it like income from a lottery, everyone would agree that taxing it makes sense.
I think this viewpoint assumes that everyone lives independently. A lot of families function as units and they all live and work together. If you inherit post-tax income from a family member, then the money has been fairly taxed regardless of your viewpoint.
Why should you have to pay the government to inherit your late-parent’s car or business? What happens if you can’t afford to pay the tax?
For the low income families this can make or break a person’s way of life, for the 1% it is a way of hoarding the world’s wealth and maintain power.
I’m talking specifically about the double taxation point.
Its clear inheritance taxes must be highly progressive or else you are penalizing things like family homes etc. But even still reverse mortgages, business loans, stocks… All these financial instruments exist.
I agree it needs to be a highly progressive tax. I’m generalizing because we’re discussing international tax law and I don’t know the income cutoffs for different countries.
Double taxation is a real concern only if the inheritance tax affects very low income individuals. A family who shares a car or a struggling family restaurant might have a very difficult time if they are forced to pay an unexpected tax bill.
1 This is like saying, since you work for your family’s business and since the business gets taxed on the profits they use to pay you, that you shouldn’t have to pay income taxes.
2 You can ALWAYS pay the tax. Since it’s based on the value of the items you inherited, you’d just have to decide which items you’re willing to sell to in order to pay the tax.
3 how many low income families do you know of that more that $10 million dollars in assets? >!FUCKING NONE! Because these strawmen don’t fucking exist!<
I’m specifically talking about very low income families since I am talking about the general pros and cons of applying an inheritance tax to all citizens since we are discussing why the inheritance tax might have been removed in Austria / German. I’m not familiar with international tax law to be more specific about income levels so I’m trying ro cover all bases.
If a poor family is sharing a car or a family restaurant, it could be very damaging to have to pay tax on these assets if they don’t have savings.
I understand that this doesn’t apply to families with large assets and I agree that an inheritance tax is generally a good thing when applied progressively.
Yeah, I was more thinking generational wealth like billionaire kids. It seems crazy not to tax that.
Rich people paid off enough of the legislative.
EDIT: Probably