Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists • Hacker News Board

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#31

Post by andrepd » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:35 PM UTC

phplovesong wrote: post #7

This is just wrong. If we skip the ultra rich totally and focus on normal families inheritance is THE way to help you decendants. Right now (where i live) you pay a big tax on inheritance, this is ok if you only inherit cash. In 99% of inheritances this is not the case. You inherit family home, a cottage etc. Then you must sell because you cant afford to pay for it. Now the asset is gone forever and the next generati…

What is a progressive tax?

Ridiculous straw man, because this is like saying income tax should be abolished because minimum wage people can't afford it. Yeah no shit that's why it's progressive. In the case of inheritance, even a 0% bracket until ~1M$ will mean the tax leaves the middle class entirely unaffected while ensuring massive feudal-levels of generational wealth are at least curbed, and turned over to the commons.

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#32

Post by blargthorwars » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:35 PM UTC

Drakim wrote: post #9

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism creates inequality, but in a socialism/communism economy there would be either no money or no goods. Everyone would be equally poor, not just some.

Why would there be no money under socialism?

No money is a bit of hyperbole, but fundamentally, nobody really wants to work hard for the exclusive benefit of everybody else.

Greed is an innate human trait.

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#33

Post by 317070 » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:35 PM UTC

christkv wrote: post #6

Inheritance is in most cases the only way young people in a lot of European countries can even own their own home

That sounds like a lottery for housing, with extra steps? Hypothetical scenario: we have 100 houses, and 200 young families looking for one. Your solution in effect is: let's give 100 houses to the 100 young people with an inheritance. That sounds arbitrary.

Lack of housing is a disconnected problem from inheritance taxes.

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#34

Post by contrarian1234 » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:35 PM UTC

phplovesong wrote: post #7

This is just wrong. If we skip the ultra rich totally and focus on normal families inheritance is THE way to help you decendants. Right now (where i live) you pay a big tax on inheritance, this is ok if you only inherit cash. In 99% of inheritances this is not the case. You inherit family home, a cottage etc. Then you must sell because you cant afford to pay for it. Now the asset is gone forever and the next generati…

its such a feudal mentality that I really have trouble identifying with it. My parents are significantly wealthier than me, but i just have zero sense of being entitled to the fruits of their labor (though of course i have benefited from it) and even moreso their house... (i wish they had a cottage lol)

we all make our own way in the modern world and i feel as a society we try to not just leave it to fate and how gilded the vagina you crawled out of was

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#35

Post by tock » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:36 PM UTC

shoubidouwah wrote: post #16

1) set a generous threshold over which your inheritance gets taxed, inflation adjusted (e.g, 2M not including the principal residence) 2) tax 100% above it. (should only concern a fraction of a fraction of cases) 3) put all this tax's proceeds in a sovereign wealth fund 4) at 21, a citizen gets access to her redistributed generational wealth 5) profit

Why make it on inheritance then? Tax wealth 100% above 2M. I do think this would doom progress but would be a fun exercise.

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#36

Post by boxed » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:37 PM UTC

kachapopopow wrote: post #26

shoubidouwah wrote: post #16

1) set a generous threshold over which your inheritance gets taxed, inflation adjusted (e.g, 2M not including the principal residence) 2) tax 100% above it. (should only concern a fraction of a fraction of cases) 3) put all this tax's proceeds in a sovereign wealth fund 4) at 21, a citizen gets access to her redistributed generational wealth 5) profit

I think the bigger issue is that people are hording wealth instead of spending it in general making money work for them and not for the greater economy which is the only thing giving their money substance long-term. Well, long-term is longer than human lifetime so I guess there's no real reason for them to worry about it either.

I've heard this take a lot and it doesn't make much sense to me. How exactly are ultra rich "hoarding wealth instead of spending it"? Afaik most of the net worth of the ultra rich is in ownership of companies (stocks) or loans (eg bonds). That money is all out there in the world working.

Isn't the fact that the ultra rich are using their wealth productively the reason we have growing wealth inequality? Because active money grows faster than inflation, which is why they get richer compared to the rest of us over time.

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#37

Post by u_sama » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:37 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #22

u_sama wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-example: All the European, and world countries who have implemented the various inheritance, wealth taxes and heavy redistribution yet the inequality is still widening. Take France, Norway or Sweden as the ideal social democracies. Argentina (the end game of social democracy) pre-Milei had a huge array of taxes and regulations which lead to the state misusing that money to actually enrich a small elite of pol…

Unlike people, capital has no nation. It can just move effortlessly from France to Switzerland to the Cayman Islands. That's why single-country initiatives to e.g. tax wealth (or even tax extremely profitable companies) are doomed to failure: those assets are easy to transfer and hide; if the UK passes a progressive wealth tax, all those global billionaires will just sell their empty houses in London and buy empty ho…

This is basically a prisoner dilemma on a global scale where the incentives are for single marginalised nations to leverage the fact of being tax havens to survive globalisation. The dream of a single global tax is as possible as making China/US respect any of the agreements they have signed regarding trade and environment.

The same proposal is also criticized by many economists too, who argue that inequality has not risen as sharply as Piketty's crew claims, or that the bulk of that inequality is linked to the real estate, for which the only solution is build more houses and destroy the capital accumulation of older generation to the profit on newer ones.

1: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/deciphering-the-fall-and-...

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#38

Post by Drakim » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:37 PM UTC

blargthorwars wrote: post #32

Drakim wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would there be no money under socialism?

No money is a bit of hyperbole, but fundamentally, nobody really wants to work hard for the exclusive benefit of everybody else. Greed is an innate human trait.

So there would be money, it would just be less efficient. That's a fair enough claim, but I don't understand why I was downvoted for asking.

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#39

Post by CogitoCogito » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:37 PM UTC

u_sama wrote: post #8

farseer wrote: post #2

That is the way of the world, capitalism specifically. The only way to counter is a fair tax system and good spending on education up to college level.

Counter-example: All the European, and world countries who have implemented the various inheritance, wealth taxes and heavy redistribution yet the inequality is still widening. Take France, Norway or Sweden as the ideal social democracies. Argentina (the end game of social democracy) pre-Milei had a huge array of taxes and regulations which lead to the state misusing that money to actually enrich a small elite of pol…

Sweden has no inheritance or wealth tax.

Re: Over $70T of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists

#40

Post by cynicalsecurity » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 12:37 PM UTC

Drakim wrote: post #9

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism creates inequality, but in a socialism/communism economy there would be either no money or no goods. Everyone would be equally poor, not just some.

Why would there be no money under socialism?

Because it would be stolen by the government. Ask people in post-Soviet countries about how Soviet governments were stealing money from their bank accounts, from all citizens collectively. No one believed in money under socialism in the USSR. The government could always pull a funny trick called "and now... it's gone". Be happy, comrade, that only your money is gone, you could also be in prison.