Is Inheritance Legitimate?

Download or read book Is Inheritance Legitimate? written by Guido Erreygers and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate on inheritance and inheritance taxation has always been linked with the " efficiency versus equity issue". Some consider inheritance taxes as highly appropriate means to bring forth more economic equality, especially equality in starting conditions. Others openly doubt the effectiveness of inheritance taxes in this domain, and point out that the negative effects may outweigh the positive. Some go as far as to say that high inheritance taxes threaten fundamental ethical values and should therefore be abolished. In this book both economists and philosophers try to disentangle these and related theoretical issues. It gives an overview of what economists and philosophers have to say on the matter, and confronts and discusses two radically opposed reform proposals.