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The evolvement of inheritance law

Different implications among the UK, Germany and France

The reversal in inheritance tax

The present situation of inheritance law

Efficiency of inheritance law for reaching a fairer wealth distribution

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Since the notion of inheritance law and wealth concentration is rather complex, we based our essay on existing literature and waived the implementation of empirical research.

As the concept of inheritance law is pretty vast and relies on a construct of institutions and various factors, we are not able to give THE solution for distributing wealth in a fair way.

Since the world is constantly changing, watching the transformations of inheritance law in the future is highly interesting. The knowledge we have obtained through our history-based research will allow us to understand the development in an even better way.

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1. Inheritance tax is currently not sufficient for reaching a fairer wealth distribution

2. The three most important changes throughout generations that have influenced the inheritance of family wealth are: changes in statutory inheritance law, abolition of entail and the introduction to progressive estate taxation.

3. Inheritance tax has lost in popularity in the late 20th century which can be seen through various conducted surveys.

4. In the UK, the government introduced a progressive tax (=Nil-rate IHT), i.e., that the first 325,000 pounds are tax exempt which intentionally excludes most of the population.

5. Germany focuses on preserving family ownership of the firms hence inheritance taxes are rather low in comparison to e.g., France and the UK.

6. In France family capital is heavily taxed and divided among multiple heirs.

7. Currently, wealth concentration favours the richest, which is seen as an issue: It is criticized that the affluent society gains more and more influence over policy decisions and politicians.

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What is inheritance law?

How did inheritance taxation and wealth concentration develop over the past decades?

What are the differences between inheritance law across countries? Cases of the UK, Germany and France

What are present forms of inheritance tax and what might change in the future?

How efficient is current inheritance law?

How do inheritance regulations and taxation influence wealth concentration?

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Beckert, J. (2012). Are we still modern? Inheritance law and the broken promise of the enlightenment. In Inherited Wealth, Justice and Equality (pp. 90-100). Routledge.

Beckert, J. (2022). Durable Wealth: Institutions, Mechanisms, and Practices of Wealth Perpetuation. Annual Review of Sociology, 48.

Carney, M., Gedajlovic, E., & Strike, V. M. (2014). Dead money: Inheritance law and the longevity of family firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 38(6), 1261-1283.

Cole, A. (2015). Estate and inheritance taxes around the world. Fiscal Fact, 458.

Garbinti, B., & Goupille-Lebret, J. (2018). The Impact of Inheritance and Transfer Taxation on Economic Behaviours and Inequality: A Literature Review for France. ifo DICE Report, 16(2), 13-18.

Gerzog, W. C. (2014). What's Wrong with a Federal Inheritance Tax?. Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal, 49(1), 163-201.

Moretti, E., & Wilson, D. J. (2019). Taxing billionaires: Estate taxes and the geographical location of the ultra-wealthy (No. w26387). National Bureau of Economic Research.

OECD (2021), Inheritance Taxation in OECD Countries, OECD Tax Policy Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/e2879a7d-en.

Thistle, W. T. (2007). A Comparative Guide of Where to Die: Should the United Kingdom Repeal Its Inheritance Tax. Ga. J. Int'l & Comp. L., 36, 705.

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The essay was mainly based on an OECD report about wealth concentration across the organisation’s countries. Furthermore, various publications regarding inheritance taxation of different countries were considered. We focused on a recently published OECD report for presenting the current situation since most of the scientific papers about inheritance tax were rather old.