[rtpg]

Double taxation doesn't mean anything in this context.

We tax transactions, not specific euros. Income tax when an employer pays their employee. Inheritance tax once the money goes from the deceased to the heirs.

These are separate things! And no different than, say, VAT on that iPhone. Sure it's between family members , but in the vast majority of cases all parties are independent adults.

The land you inherit is not "justly yours". It was the previous owner's thing. You are getting it but it is not your divine right, except that you won the birth lottery by being born into this family.

Of course a lot of families also have smaller domains, and it makes since to have some lower limit... But let's not forget people affected by inheritance tax are overwhelmingly very rich. Most of the population ends up with nothing.

[julian_1]

> The land you inherit is not "justly yours". It was the previous owner's thing. You are getting it but it is not your divine right, except that you won the birth lottery by being born into this family.

Of course those arguments apply to governments as well, since they don't derive their law-making authority by claim to divinity - at least in modern times. Why should a government be specially privileged over a citizens wishes to provide for their family and/or community after death?

[twblalock]

> Of course those arguments apply to governments as well, since they don't derive their law-making authority by claim to divinity - at least in modern times.

You could use that statement to argue about anything a government does. Why does the inheritance tax need a special justification?

[julian_1]

Why do laws that appropriate private citizens wealth need to be justified?

Well, the alternative is wonderful stuff like civil forfeiture law. Whereby a policeman without evidence or proof of criminal wrongdoing can take that $2000 in your glovebox in the name of a defacto beneficiary (the state), because on a balance of probabilities he thinks he has a better claim than you do.

[crdoconnor]

>Why do laws that appropriate private citizens wealth need to be justified?

What moral authority does a private citizen have to own land in Manhattan created 3 billion years ago and made valuable by the infrastructure he didn't build and community he charges rent to?

[julian_1]

I would argue that indigenous inhabits as private citizens have the better claim by virtue of tradition and generational succession, than the 'state' as defacto beneficiary and law-maker everytime. The dispossession of native peoples by colonial governments is just another example.

Government confiscation of private wealth in the name of perceived inequality, should be examined very carefully when modern economies are structurally indebted, and budget for foreign policy objectives over domestic improvement.