{"id":247,"date":"2016-07-19T04:21:43","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T04:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/?p=247"},"modified":"2025-12-31T09:43:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T09:43:03","slug":"the-debate-on-inheritance-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"The Debate on Inheritance Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"left\">Inheritance tax has come under sustained scrutiny in recent years as it is regarded as a reasonably effective way of reducing excessive personal inequality. However Governments across the world are in favour of providing exemptions to this tax due to the negative consequences it can have on family businesses.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\u00a0Many countries like, Germany exempts most heirs of family businesses from inheritance tax, provided they do not lay people off for seven years. On the other hand, heirs of non-business wealth face a steep tax schedule that rises to 50% at the top. As a result, even though Germans pass on more than \u20ac200 billion ($221 billion) of wealth each year, their government collects only \u20ac5 billion to \u20ac6 billion a year as inheritance tax: less than 1% of overall tax revenues. However, there is a growing consensus on bringing about changes to these tax laws that favour the Mittelstand heirs.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\u00a0Similarly India, a country with one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world, does not have inheritance tax. This is ironic considering that the tax rates on personal and corporate income are high even by global standards.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\u00a0<i>Source: http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/europe\/21701801-taxes-germans-who-inherit-businesses-often-come-nought-free-will<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inheritance tax has come under sustained scrutiny in recent years as it is regarded as a reasonably effective way of reducing excessive personal inequality. However Governments across the world are in favour of providing exemptions to this tax due to the negative consequences it can have on family businesses. \u00a0Many countries like, Germany exempts most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Debate on Inheritance Tax - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Debate on Inheritance Tax - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Inheritance tax has come under sustained scrutiny in recent years as it is regarded as a reasonably effective way of reducing excessive personal inequality. However Governments across the world are in favour of providing exemptions to this tax due to the negative consequences it can have on family businesses. \u00a0Many countries like, Germany exempts most [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-19T04:21:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-31T09:43:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Editorial team\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Editorial team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/\",\"name\":\"The Debate on Inheritance Tax - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-19T04:21:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-31T09:43:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#\/schema\/person\/36b0b1fce0228ee6b0380926861571cc\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Debate on Inheritance Tax\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/\",\"name\":\"Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise\",\"description\":\"Creating value for families and businesses through research and innovation\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#\/schema\/person\/36b0b1fce0228ee6b0380926861571cc\",\"name\":\"Editorial team\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20fb226145337a9ce5d93494a13b2d55?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20fb226145337a9ce5d93494a13b2d55?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Editorial team\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/author\/isb_blog_user_admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Debate on Inheritance Tax - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2016\/07\/19\/the-debate-on-inheritance-tax\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Debate on Inheritance Tax - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise","og_description":"Inheritance tax has come under sustained scrutiny in recent years as it is regarded as a reasonably effective way of reducing excessive personal inequality. 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