What does a 100% inheritence tax look like?

Thinking quickly about the economics of a 100% inheritence tax. In terms of investment, if there's a full inheritence tax, large endowments/funds that are managed by inheritors are reclaimed by the government. And large stakes in private companies would also be reclaimed and sold by the government.

If this worked correctly, companies would lose large investments when investors died, because the government would automatically sell stakes. If the value of the company reflects it's economic output, these sales will damage the company value some amount because the company will have a harder time selling shares to raise capital. What happens if the government is unable to find a buyer for the shares of a company? Then the shares are worthless.. The government should also spread sales over a period to avoid selling them well below market value in a market inefficiency. That's a bit of a detail.

If a company is relying on a large investor who dies, the company has no obligation to buy back the stake in ownership at an equal price. The government will take ownership and attempt to sell/auction the stake, and the company may buy it for a significantly reduced price.

What happens if you are CEO of a company that has 100% ownership? (All owners have died and the company now owns itself). What happens if the sole owner of a company dies and the company tries to repurchase the share? The company cannot repurchase the remaining shares in itself, and if no new owner is found, than the company enters bankrupcy proceedings and assets are distributed as required to debtors, with excess reclaimed by the government.

What if someone wants to evade the system? They will move large quantities of money offshore for inheritence. The inheritor now has a large quantity of offshore assets, with which they can do business with internatinal companies. However, they can't invest in, or do deals with national companies. If they try to repatriot the money, it will be reclaimed by the government at that time.

What if they have all their money in Euros, and are now trying to convert the Euros to dollars? How do we know these Euros are invalid? If there is no large inheritence tax on Euros, then they will receive the inheritence in Euros, and then convert them to dollars. American citizens have to report all international assets, and are legally required to transfer ownership of these assets to the federal government at time of death. If the international firm controlling the assets is unwilling to transfer the assets to the US federal government, than the entity should be excluded from the economic system.

What if a US resident moves to another country, then dies, and the child tries to move back and bring inherited funds? This will work if the US resident forfeits US citizenship, and therefore is not subject to American law. If the child seeks to apply for US citizenship, then the government may request that funds be turned over to the government as a condition for granting citizenship.

Will this lead to wealthy multigenerational elites from other countries having outsized influence that Americans cannot attain? The wealthiest present Americans are all first generation: Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. So this could be a problem, but not a glaring one.

Published: 2020-06-07