Agreed for the most part, but I disagree about the 100% taxes thing. I think we should instead cap inheritance/gifts, not income. You can be as wealthy as you want, but once you die, it all goes back to the common pot.

I don't care about rich people, I mostly just care about generational wealth.

You can be as wealthy as you want, but once you die, it all goes back to the common pot.

So that 18-year-old that loses both his parents will inherent nothing? So he would have to live on the street or something? Or that women who lose their husband, so inheriting the other half of their combined income? Which will cause her to lose the house etc?

Inheriting a couple 100k or even a mill isn't really the issue. Do tax it, yes, but 100% tax on anything is unreasonable, or at least if that happens at once. That's why we have multiple different taxes.

I think we should instead cap inheritance/gifts, not income.

The cap wouldn't be zero, it would probably be in the low millions. If your parents were wealthy, you'd have a head start, but you would still need to work. There could be a separate exclusion for spouses, where maybe they keep half of the wealth or something as a one-time transfer (i.e. if they get remarried, that wealth wouldn't transfer to the new spouse).

As part of this, I also want to rework corporations and trusts. Basically, the only legal entity that gets special tax treatment are corporations with low valuation, once you go public or report net income or revenue over some amount, the legal protections go away. So mom and pop shops would get bankruptcy protection and whatnot, but large corporations wouldn't.

But all of that overcomplicates what I wanted to communicate, which is that generational wealth shouldn't be a thing. Property should be community owned and exclusivity agreements should be temporary (i.e. real estate should be owned until death).

You still wouldn't want to do any taxation at 100%, make it 70 or 80% sure, but 100% is just bullshit and 70-80% will be enough. The way to get people to accept higher taxes is to explain it to hem. People will also do everything in their power to not pay that 100% tax, including just stopping their Dang business for that year if corporate income would be taxed at 100%

The spousal thing is generally solved in the world by giving an exception, in NL it's like the first 800k is tax-free when your legal spouse dies.

Money inside companies is just money that will be taxed at a later date, the issue is that billionaires in the US put their stocks up as collateral taking out loans. It would be taxed again if they dividend it out or pay themselves somewhat of a wage.

The issue with companies is that evaluating them is something that you just cannot easily do every year for the tax report, unless you just go look at the equity = company value. We do have some designation for small, median and large companies based on revenue, balance total and FTE count, well at least in NL it is based on those 3.

Small companies need some tax breaks and larger companies don't, but a lot of companies are split up to multiple different companies to be able to benefit from tax breaks.

Property should be community owned and exclusivity agreements should be temporary (i.e. real estate should be owned until death).

Owning a single property is not the issue, every family should be able to own one. It's the fact that people own multiple properties. You want to make it so it is not a good financial decision to own multiple properties, either you as a business or you as a person.

generational wealth shouldn’t be a thing.
You mean massive amount of generational wealth, but in my example that kid that lost his parents should still inherent that house right?

Just increase the inheritance tax for everything after a mil or so. It's still a couple taxation, but hey

The idea is rooted in the same ideas that Georgism is based on, which is the idea that people should own the value they create themselves, whereas things like property should be communally owned. Inheritance money isn't created value, so I think there's a good argument that it should be capped, and any excess should go to the people..

I don't believe in inheritance tax to fund the government though, it should merely be redistributed either as cash or donations to unaffiliated charities. The only tax used to fund governments should be land value taxes.

100% inheritence tax will go to the government though.

Still it's basically stealing from families anyway.

Which goes through the government.

Again if you want more income for those at the bottom you want efficient tax methods and 100% is not an efficient tax method since people will do EVERYTHING they can to avoid it. If people can accept a tax rate, they will pay it. Well a lot more people will pay it.

Yes, it goes through the government and is technically a tax, my point is that it's not funding the government.

The point isn't to be an effective way to redistribute money, the point is to ensure the winners earned it as much as possible. When someone "succeeds" entirely because of their parents' wealth, we run into the same issues as we had under kings where those at the top feel like they "deserve" to be there without actually earning it. If rich people decide to donate it all to causes they support instead of having it be redistributed, that's totally fine, because the point isn't to help the poor, it's to prevent generational wealth from determining winners and losers.

Like I said, 100% tax is just stealing.

It's not an issue to actually tax the rich, but the first x schould be tax free and after that a bracket should be low tax until y and then you can charge z percentage above that, but it cannot be 100% tax.

Sure, if you recognize generational wealth as being legitimate, taking that away is stealing.

I'm arguing that you only own the value you create. Inheriting wealth doesn't create value, so it's not really yours. I do think there's a legitimate argument for taking care of your family after you die, hence why I believe in some amount of exclusion for gifts (say in the million to tens of millions), because there are absolutely cases where it's necessary (i.e. if you have a special needs child or something) and that's not really the government's business. However, I do think the excess should be returned back to society, either through charitable donations or a direct redistribution.

Here's how I see it happening:

1. upon death, all wealth is tabulated, and all real property is given a valuation by the local tax authority
2. taxes are evaluated to determine how much gift tax exclusion still remains, and the will is consulted to determine how much each heir gets
3. heirs get first dibs on real property from 1, and then the rest is handed out as the estate is liquidated (real property is auctioned)
4. any remaining real property after the gift tax exclusion (or the will's terms have been meted out, whichever is less) goes to the state for redistribution; none of this money can be used for funding the government, it can only be used for direct costs of redistribution

I don't see permanent ownership of real property as being legitimate, and I don't think inheritances are legitimate, because that promotes dynasties. The average person will be well below the gift tax exemption, so children of wealthy parents will absolutely have a step up over other people, but they won't automatically be filthy rich.

I believe in some amount of exclusion for gifts (say in the million to tens of millions),

You don't need to gift away millions of euro's let's be honest.

Like I explained to you, if you want taxes to be effective they have to be based on something and be kinda fair.
If you inheritence tax is 100% that means that every euro is taxed for a lot more than 100%.

Gifts just before deaths are often considered to be inheritance as well in some tax systems like NL fyi.

local tax authority
You realise that most tax authorities have a lack of staff to be able to do it? Most people wouldn't want to work at a tax office anyway

Basically how it works in NL currently:
1. Every asset is valuated
2. Based on the existing (or non existing) testament everything is distributed
3. the receivers or the personal responsible for distributing everything does a tax filing
4. Within 3 years of receiving the tax filing the government sends out a letter for the tax to be paid which is calculated with certain percentages depending on who is the receiver and the first x is also free from tax. Here you check the percentages etc: consumentenbond.nl/erven-schen…

There is also a special occasion when one of the parents die, then the remaining parent is in debt to the children until they die.

And exception for anything more than 1m euro is absolute bullshit. 140-150k is more than enough for most. Again taxing anything for 100% is stealing, you can do 60-70% though.

Most rich people don't deal with a lot of inheritence tax anyway. Most of the companies and very expensive assets will be passed down before they die. This will become even more if a 100% tax is introduced.

I don’t see permanent ownership of real property as being legitimate
Why shouldn't somebody be able to own their house? There are people who have legally bought the ground (or they pay rent for it) and they bought their own house. Why shouldn't they be able to own that and why shouldn't the childeren be able to live in that?

I don't sign up for the extreme taxation people like you want to introduce, because it will give people more incentive to do everything to not pay it. it will also get people to push more against the system. I have seen it time and time again with different taxes, considering I work at an accounting firm.

Instead we should have a good system of social security which means everybody has a basis income which should allow them to properly survive and thrive a bit. You will still have some people struggling one way or another with something like a universal basic income, but there is basically no way of stopping it but it will be vastly reduced.

Edit: there are a ton of ways of passing on wealth from one generation to another and with absurd levels of wealth is basically always goes in the form of passing companies down and there will always be at least one country where this is possible in a way you pay very little to no tax over it. Even if you keep it in the same countries you can often easily pass the company down, especially if the person who is inheriting it is working in that company. Why would not be actual value that somebody is allowed to inherited
There is a real issue with that people keep pushing their taxes forward. Like Musk being able to take loans with their stocks as collateral instead of dividing money out, paying taxes over that and using that. There are ton more of examples like that, that are a way bigger issue.

Erfbelasting 2024 en 2025: Vrijstellingen en tarieven

Hoeveel mag je belastingvrij erven in 2024 en 2025? En hoeveel belasting betaal je over het bedrag boven de vrijstelling?

^{Carola van Dorp - Expert erven & schenken (Consumentenbond)}

Again taxing anything for 100% is stealing, you can do 60-70% though.

Sure, if you start with the assumption that things like property and wealth can truly be owned. I personally think 60-70% tax is stealing under that assumption, and that inheritance (and gifts) should be treated like any other income.

But I'm starting from a different assumption that property is leased from society generally, and you only really own the value you create personally. When you die, there is no longer any legitimate owner so it must be redistributed.

I believe everyone should have equal opportunity to succeed, and that doesn't work if kids can just ride their parents' coattails. There will always be some of that with parents using their connections to help their kids get ahead, but inheriting a fortune completely kills any need to actually compete to succeed.

If we want a meritocratic society, we need to kill as much nepotism as we can. This article makes similar claims but from a little different perspective.

Instead we should have a good system of social security which means everybody has a basis income which should allow them to properly survive and thrive a bit.

Agreed, but without the "thrive" bit. I think we need something like universal basic income to ensure everyone is above the poverty line, but that should be the extent of it. Along with this, I think we should eliminate the minimum wage and let the market decide what's fair.

However, this is completely separate from inheritance. I don't think the government should use that money for any purpose, it should strictly be redistributed if the person who died didn't choose any charities or whatever to donate to. The government should also give it to any survivors first if there's no will, up to the limit.

I don't see it as a tax because the government isn't taking that money, it's merely facilitating redistribution.

passing companies down

Passing down shares would be subject to the same inheritance rules.

Tax inheritance at 100% – it’s the only fair choice, says Lewis Goodall

It may be one of my most left-wing political views, but the time has come to have a serious conversation about inheritance tax.

^{Lewis Goodall (LBC)}

Tell your local politicians that measures that give people more money are good for the economy. Maybe that will make them listen.

That is always been true. You don't need the AI.

Same as ever…was that money wasn’t needed.

Do you need money within your neighborhood or your family? Do you pay people for giving a favor?