If you were a politician...

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I would seek a 100% tax on all inheritance, because the concept is ridiculous.

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I would seek a 100% tax on all inheritance, because the concept is ridiculous.

Would this be combined with a 100% gift tax as well, thus effectively ending family friendly traditions like Marxmas?

Only a 100% tax upon luxury yachts or mansions being gifted to young rich people, obviously.

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I would seek a 100% tax on all inheritance, because the concept is ridiculous.

Basically. Maybe only tax everything above $1 million or so, but at a certain point, all of it should start going to the government.

No it shouldn't. the government doesn't deserve a cent of what is meant for my children. Anyway that is unfeasible, it would never pass.

Do your children deserve that money?

Does a complete stranger?

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I don't see how the latter part of the question is relevant unless you seek to use envy as a basis for crafting policy.

In any event, assessing inheritance as something the recipient "deserves" is a straw man, since nobody seriously advocates that position. Inheritance is the right of the giver, as having earned his fortune through valuable work and saving he is free to do with it as he pleases. Knowing that his earnings can help provide for his descendants provides greater incentive to save it rather than knowing that his earnings will be wasted by government bureaucrats as soon as he isn't around to stop them.

Unfortunately, the only people who do valuable work in society are, by-and-large, the ones with nothing to pass on to their children. Thus inheritance becomes a means of perpetuating parasitism, and nothing more.