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Thursday, April 19, 2012

The reprehensibility of the inheritance tax

The reprehensibility of the inheritance tax

PIERRE BESSARD
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It is also essential especially for utilitarian reasons, to protect those assets that are accumulated over a generation beyond.
U m to avoid adjustments to the reality of the welfare state continues to beat, more statist and social democratic circles once more before the usual: a new tax.Currently, there is a national inheritance tax to be introduced by national or cantonal initiative. This idea is morally highly questionable. Economically it is an own goal immediately.
The property protection plays an important role in a market economy. Any intervention in the property diminishes the dynamic cycle of saving, investment, peaceful exchange, which makes for social harmony and the satisfaction of material needs. But the institution of property also includes a significant component of ethical justice. Those who accumulate capital without legal privileges, without violence or fraud, his fortune has also in a moral sense, "deserve". It was then purchased, because the owner turned a third party service for which they otherwise voluntarily bartered. Anyone offering goods or services that others want to purchase, uses his creativity and his creativity in order to create wealth, literally. So is his fortune to him and he can dispose of freely.
Ethical principles are, however, brushed aside by utilitarian considerations. If we assume an unqualified right of taxation policy, it would be in "rich" heirs to get more theoretically secure. They represent only a small minority, and have no obvious "need". One franc more or less means to them probably not so much as for people living in modest circumstances and may need the support of the Social State. But this simplistic logic of redistribution is based on a static economy, which does not exist in the real world. The experience of other countries shows that over-taxation of the wealth of more modest budgets never improved.
It is hopeless to try to enrich the "poor" by taking the "rich". On the contrary, the former suffer from a systematic weakening of growth and innovation through an increasing tax burden. The estate tax is particularly harmful in this respect because it is a triple or even quadruple tax: The income from the saved capital is built, are already taxed once. This is still the owner of wealth tax. It may also be a tax payable on the value of its assets, if their projects are profitable and proven his entrepreneurial decision. In addition, the inflation tax is around 2% per year.
An inheritance may well contribute nothing to his happiness and it does not even have "earned". It so easy to expropriate, but is an expensive frivolity: capital accumulation is the foundation of a healthy economy. The long-term risk capital is often owned by wealthy families. Therefore, it is also essential especially for utilitarian reasons, to protect those assets that were accumulated over a generation beyond. This secures the capital financing of innovative companies, the renewal of the economic structure, the future jobs and the way the financing of social services. An inheritance tax is not only ethically questionable violation of legitimate property rights, it is also the expression of short-sighted economic policy ignorance.
Most cantons have now abolished the inheritance tax for direct descendants.This competition should be respected. He is a major reason for the continued attractiveness of Switzerland as a location for investment and as a "job machine". The social democratic inheritance tax is an irresponsible act of self-sabotage.

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