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ControversialJean-Christophe LURENBAUM on March 29, 2017 at 10:09 pmReply
L’institution de l’héritage, tabou majeur étonnamment absent des débats publics et des programmes électoraux, angle mort des enseignements universitaires en économie, correspond pourtant à une forme de “dépense publique” dont on est bien en peine de justifier l’intérêt pour la collectivité.
C’est la collectivité qui met en place des dispositifs de gestion du capital laissé par un individu à sa mort, sous la forme de “droits des personnes non-vivantes”, à l’instar du testament. Sans ces dispositifs institutionnels, l’héritage individuel ne serait pas possible : le capital resterait entre les mains de la collectivité. C’est donc à tort que l’on parle de “taxe” sur les successions : l’héritage est en réalité une “dépense publique”.
Inheritance transmits inequality from one generation to the next. Several chapters (4, 8, 17) argue that inheritance should be taxed in order to provide greater equality of opportunity to every new generation.
Yet, inheritance taxation is on the decline in many countries, and is sometimes pejoratively called the “death tax”.
From John Stuart Mill (19th century) to Anthony Atkinson in his last book (Inequality. What can be done?), several authors have proposed to tax or restrict inheritance at the level of the recipient, not at the level of the deceased. This means that you may have to pay a high tax on a bequest you receive if you have already inherited a lot from another parent. It is not the amount you leave when you die that determines the tax rate, but the amount that you receive. A large inheritance that is widely shared among many recipients is then less taxed than if it goes to a single heir.
In this forum, share your views about inheritance taxation, what makes it attractive or unattractive, how to make it useful and appreciated by the population…