The problem is financial position seems to have trajectory.
And with financial inequality widening all the time you don't want to be on the wrong side of the "middle" line if you can help it.
For example:
Less impressive house vs more impressive house with year on year compounding of % increase in value over 20 years. When the houses are both worth double what they were, the more impressive house has gained financial ground.
You may live out your life fine in your less impressive house. But now your kids inherit a house worth substantially less compared to their more impressive house peers - hence the comment on trajectory.
Whether that matters to you is for you to decide. It's the difference in thinking between a lifetime vs a dynasty.
Sadly you got downvoted but your comment seems to make two contradictory statements.
Your second sentence seems to imply 100% inheritance tax. IE kids get nothing.
But then your last sentence implies "well, the kids can have something, but it should be limited."
And on that point, I agree with you. I honestly think that wealth inheritance above a certain threshold should be 100% taxed - just gone. What that point is, I'm not sure. Maybe 10 million. Maybe 100 million. But should billionaires be friggin' born!?! I think not.
However, there are a few practical issues with this:
- get the rich and powerful, who at least influence law if they are not outright making it, to agree with this?!? Ha!
- even if you manage to do it in your country. Then the rich will simply hold their assets in another country that doesn't do this. So the scope has to be world wide. Good luck with that!
- what do you do if well before death, parents simply happen to slip, trip and make the poor business decision of selling a billion dollar asset for pennies... and the buyer simply happens to be their kid? Prevent intrafamily purchases? Then you simply have cliques who sell to each others kids.
Look, for one reason or another society has decided that there is to be no limit at the top. We've just got to live with that. But we don't have to be happy about it.
I'm not contradicting myself. I think inheritance should be for emotional reasons, but at the end of the day things have a dollar value associated with them. A car, or jewelry, can be an asset but also have emotional value. Setting a limit lets people keep the important things without hoarding wealth.
And the rest of your comment I mostly agree with, it's not an easy change, and there's lots of challenges to be solved, but that doesn't mean they can't be solved. We don't just have to live with it, we have to solve the problems 1 by 1.
The majority of companies I have worked for allow you to take unpaid time off. Maybe not to the point of 1/4th work, but you can pretty realistically get a 4 day work week this way.
