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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • 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.



  • 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.


  • For regular people, an inheritance tax is not great. For the ultra-wealthy it should be mandatory.

    Arguments against an inheritance tax:

    • Double taxation: Critics argue that inheritance taxes are a form of double taxation, since the assets being inherited have already been taxed once during the decedent’s lifetime.
    • Hurts small businesses: Family-owned businesses can face hardship if they must be sold off to pay inheritance taxes.
    • Discourages investment: Inheritance taxes can disincentivize people from saving and investing, as they know a portion of their wealth will go to the government.

    Arguments for an inheritance tax:

    • Reduces wealth inequality: Inheritance taxes help to redistribute wealth from the very wealthy to the rest of society, reducing income inequality.
    • Prevents concentration of power: By limiting the ability of wealth to be passed on unchecked, inheritance taxes can help to prevent excessive concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few families.
    • Source of government revenue: Inheritance taxes can be a significant source of revenue for governments, which can be used to fund social programs and public goods.







  • At the risk of sounding like propaganda myself… Just because you don’t witness poverty and crime doesn’t mean it is propaganda. US has a major homeless and drug epidemic that is getting worse. It is easy for those with money to put it out of sight and ignore it.

    I’m visiting China for the first time right now for 2 weeks and I must say I’m very impressed with how clean the cities are and the lack of homeless and drug addicts.

    In the US my old house in OKC has been broken into twice by homeless and my parent’s house in Miami twice as well, and their car stolen twice. Walking to work in Brooklyn, people are literally sleeping on the sidewalks under trash bags every night as everyone walks past like they aren’t there.

    Even in my my home town in Vermont, population under 10,000, there are always homeless people out in the cold begging and sleeping in tents in the woods. These people have given up on life, or given bad luck, or addicted to drugs.

    I haven’t seen any of that in China so far. Sure there are some areas outside the city centers that are more depressing looking, lack much personality, and have run down buildings but at least everyone has a home, a job, and is taken care of. People here seem to have more respect for themselves and for others. It is part of the culture here.

    Everyone I talk to here says it is incredibly safe. In fact, today I saw my first 2 police cars on the highway for the first time a week into my trip. And we’ve been driving an average of 3 hours per day everywhere between Shenzhen and ChengDu (visiting factories ). There are many cameras everywhere but there isn’t a need for hundreds of police to patrol the streets non-stop like in every city in the US. I haven’t heard a single siren the entire trip either - in cities of 20 million. You won’t find that in NYC which has half the population. Just some thoughts I wanted to share, thanks for reading.