<p>From an equality of opportunity perspective, it is desirable to have some taxes on inheritance. This levels the playing field for each generation to some extent. If real estates are exempt from such a tax, individuals would prefer real estate over other assets, creating a distortion in the asset price market.</p>

<p>For a recent contribution to optimal inheritance taxation, see:
Piketty, Thomas, and Emmanuel Saez. "A theory of optimal inheritance taxation." Econometrica 81.5 (2013): 1851-1886.</p>

<p>For an overview over the equality of opportunity literature, see:
Corak, Miles. "Income inequality, equality of opportunity, and intergenerational mobility." The Journal of Economic Perspectives (2013): 79-102.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-13T02:18:12.680Z
2015-11-13T02:18:12.680Z
HRSE
<p>It may seem unfair that someone who has already met their tax obligations gets hit with another one after they die. From an economic standpoint, it is very popular.</p>
<p>I'll let <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/10024733" rel="noreferrer">this economist article</a> explain it...</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The gut dislike of death duties seems to arise because the tax clashes with heartfelt dynastic instincts</p>
<p>Any tax on capital will tend to dissuade people from accumulating the wealth in the first place, but a death duty is arguably one of the better options...</p>
<p>[The tax burden] falls on unintended legacies—money put aside to pay for old age, for example—as well as intentional bequests. Since unintended bequests are, by definition, not planned they should be unaffected by the prospect of the tax.</p>
<p>Death duties can also be justified in terms of fairness. A thriving economy will generate great fortunes, but there is good reason to check these becoming entrenched through inheritance. The estate tax offers a modest counterweight against the development of a new plutocracy to rival the industrial barons of America's Gilded Age. Furthermore it also taxes wealth built up through windfalls rather than thrift and effort.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Also, see <a href="http://eml.berkeley.edu/%7Esaez/piketty-saezECMA13.pdf" rel="noreferrer">this article by the well known Thomas Piketty</a> (<em>I just noticed another answerer included it as well</em>) which provides a model of optimal inheritance taxation. In particular, read the introduction which covers a lot of useful background and an overview of the model. Piketty et al also provide the conditions in which a zero tax rate is optimal.</p>
<p><strong>Here is the abstract:</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>This paper derives optimal inheritance tax formulas that capture the key equity-efficiency trade-off, are expressed in terms of estimable sufficient statistics, and are robust to the underlying structure of preferences.</p>
<p>We consider dynamic stochastic models with general and heterogeneous bequest tastes and labor productivities. We limit our- selves to simple but realistic linear or two-bracket tax structures to obtain tractable formulas. We show that long-run optimal inheritance tax rates can always be expressed in terms of aggregate earnings and bequest elasticities with respect to tax rates, distributional parameters, and social preferences for redistribution.</p>
<p>Those results carry over with tractable modifications to (a) the case with social discounting (instead of steady-state welfare maximization), (b) the case with partly accidental bequests, (c) the standard Barro–Becker dynastic model. The optimal tax rate is positive and quantitatively large if the elasticity of bequests to the tax rate is low, bequest concentration is high, and society cares mostly about those receiving little inheritance. We propose a calibration using micro-data for France and the United States. We find that, for realistic parameters, the optimal inheritance tax rate might be as large as 50%–60%—or even higher for top bequests, in line with historical experience.</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-13T03:30:31.827Z
2015-11-13T03:30:31.827Z
2020-06-17T09:40:54.643Z
Jamzy
<p>An estate or inheritance tax can be thought of as a tax on the transfer from the deceased to the heir. So the tax is really on their heir, but the tax is based on the total amount transferred to heirs (rather than on any individual heir). Much more tax would be collected if it were counted as normal income and taxed with income taxes.</p>
<p>In terms of fairness, if you subscribe to utilitarian philosophy, estate/inheritance taxes are usually a rather progressive tax that affects the wealthy more. This might be seen as socially good.</p>
<p>Another way to think about it is that the heirs of the rich often haven't really earned that wealth, and tend to waste that money. The ones who are productive tend to earn it <em>before</em> their heir dies.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://governology.substack.com/p/taxes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">while there don't seem like there should be much deadweight losses from inheritance, there in fact are</a>. The high amounts collected all at once with taxes like this result in very strong avoidance behavior that incentivizes quite a lot of <a href="https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1197&amp;context=articles" rel="nofollow noreferrer">wasteful actions in order to preserve some additional wealth</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-07-24T21:01:25.447Z
2023-07-24T21:01:25.447Z
Governology
<p>Isn't it unfair for estates to be taxed after death? The person who bequeathed the estate probably purchased it with after tax money, so wouldn't it then be taxed twice? What is the purpose of the tax other than to generate funding for government spending?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-13T06:27:08.600Z
"Fairness"? What on earth is fair about randomly receiving a huge sum of money for doing no work whatsoever, for generations on end?
djechlin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-13T06:29:23.173Z
Sum of "money" including, say, property, that you rent out to other people, who work, and give you money they earned to live in. That's what you're calling fair? Asking about estate taxes is a perfectly valid economic question but calling them "unfair" in some moralistic sense beckons admonishment.
djechlin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-13T09:28:11.873Z
It's not very clear if you mean any [estate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_(law)) or just real estate in your question. But in general taxation on estates is intended to prevent [rent-seeking behavior](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking).
fantastic peace and prosperity
<macroeconomics><microeconomics><taxation><optimal-taxation>
Why are there estate taxes after the owner passes away?
sauceman4
# Why are there estate taxes after the owner passes away?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-11-13)

Isn't it unfair for estates to be taxed after death? The person who bequeathed the estate probably purchased it with after tax money, so wouldn't it then be taxed twice? What is the purpose of the tax other than to generate funding for government spending?

**Tags:** macroeconomics, microeconomics, taxation, optimal-taxation
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: "Fairness"? What on earth is fair about randomly receiving a huge sum of money for doing no work whatsoever, for generations on end?  
> **username_1**: Sum of "money" including, say, property, that you rent out to other people, who work, and give you money they earned to live in. That's what you're calling fair? Asking about estate taxes is a perfectly valid economic question but calling them "unfair" in some moralistic sense beckons admonishment.  
> **username_2**: It's not very clear if you mean any [estate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_(law)) or just real estate in your question. But in general taxation on estates is intended to prevent [rent-seeking behavior](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking).  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2015-11-13. Score: 6

From an equality of opportunity perspective, it is desirable to have some taxes on inheritance. This levels the playing field for each generation to some extent. If real estates are exempt from such a tax, individuals would prefer real estate over other assets, creating a distortion in the asset price market.

For a recent contribution to optimal inheritance taxation, see:
Piketty, Thomas, and Emmanuel Saez. "A theory of optimal inheritance taxation." Econometrica 81.5 (2013): 1851-1886.

For an overview over the equality of opportunity literature, see:
Corak, Miles. "Income inequality, equality of opportunity, and intergenerational mobility." The Journal of Economic Perspectives (2013): 79-102.


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2015-11-13. Score: 5

It may seem unfair that someone who has already met their tax obligations gets hit with another one after they die. From an economic standpoint, it is very popular.

I'll let [this economist article](http://www.economist.com/node/10024733) explain it...

> The gut dislike of death duties seems to arise because the tax clashes with heartfelt dynastic instincts
>
> Any tax on capital will tend to dissuade people from accumulating the wealth in the first place, but a death duty is arguably one of the better options...
>
> [The tax burden] falls on unintended legacies—money put aside to pay for old age, for example—as well as intentional bequests. Since unintended bequests are, by definition, not planned they should be unaffected by the prospect of the tax.
>
> Death duties can also be justified in terms of fairness. A thriving economy will generate great fortunes, but there is good reason to check these becoming entrenched through inheritance. The estate tax offers a modest counterweight against the development of a new plutocracy to rival the industrial barons of America's Gilded Age. Furthermore it also taxes wealth built up through windfalls rather than thrift and effort.

Also, see [this article by the well known Thomas Piketty](http://eml.berkeley.edu/%7Esaez/piketty-saezECMA13.pdf) (*I just noticed another answerer included it as well*) which provides a model of optimal inheritance taxation. In particular, read the introduction which covers a lot of useful background and an overview of the model. Piketty et al also provide the conditions in which a zero tax rate is optimal.

**Here is the abstract:**

> This paper derives optimal inheritance tax formulas that capture the key equity-efficiency trade-off, are expressed in terms of estimable sufficient statistics, and are robust to the underlying structure of preferences.
>
> We consider dynamic stochastic models with general and heterogeneous bequest tastes and labor productivities. We limit our- selves to simple but realistic linear or two-bracket tax structures to obtain tractable formulas. We show that long-run optimal inheritance tax rates can always be expressed in terms of aggregate earnings and bequest elasticities with respect to tax rates, distributional parameters, and social preferences for redistribution.
>
> Those results carry over with tractable modifications to (a) the case with social discounting (instead of steady-state welfare maximization), (b) the case with partly accidental bequests, (c) the standard Barro–Becker dynastic model. The optimal tax rate is positive and quantitatively large if the elasticity of bequests to the tax rate is low, bequest concentration is high, and society cares mostly about those receiving little inheritance. We propose a calibration using micro-data for France and the United States. We find that, for realistic parameters, the optimal inheritance tax rate might be as large as 50%–60%—or even higher for top bequests, in line with historical experience.


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2023-07-24. Score: 0

An estate or inheritance tax can be thought of as a tax on the transfer from the deceased to the heir. So the tax is really on their heir, but the tax is based on the total amount transferred to heirs (rather than on any individual heir). Much more tax would be collected if it were counted as normal income and taxed with income taxes.

In terms of fairness, if you subscribe to utilitarian philosophy, estate/inheritance taxes are usually a rather progressive tax that affects the wealthy more. This might be seen as socially good.

Another way to think about it is that the heirs of the rich often haven't really earned that wealth, and tend to waste that money. The ones who are productive tend to earn it *before* their heir dies.

However, [while there don't seem like there should be much deadweight losses from inheritance, there in fact are](https://governology.substack.com/p/taxes). The high amounts collected all at once with taxes like this result in very strong avoidance behavior that incentivizes quite a lot of [wasteful actions in order to preserve some additional wealth](https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1197&context=articles).


---

