A German heir inheriting billions of dollars from her extremely wealthy grandparents said she was “annoyed” by the incoming fortune and wants nearly all of it to be taxed away. (Read More Here).
The surprising response from Marlene Engelhorn, of Austria, came after her grandmother died last month — leaving behind the massive sum of money that came from the family’s centuries-old chemical company.
Ms Engelhorn also spoke to Vice News last year and told them: ‘nobody should have that much tax-free money and power.’
Knowing that she would one day inherit the fortune, Ms Engelhorn has spent the last decade campaigning for tax policies that would see her wealth heavily taxed and redistributed by the government.
Ms Engelhorn is the co-founder of Tax Me Now, a group of wealthy people in Germany who are campaigning for greater taxes on their earnings.
Ms Engelhorn told the New York Times that many people have reached out to her to ask for financial help after reading about her campaign or seeing her on TV. She said it pains her to say no because she believes it should be for the state to decide how to redistribute her wealth through tax rather than it being her decision.
“The dream scenario is I get taxed,” the 30-year-old told the New York Times.
Last year, in a profile by Vice News, Engelhorn told the outlet in German that “nobody should have that much tax-free money and power.”
‘I am the product of an unequal society,’ Ms Engelhorn said in her speech for the Millionaires for Humanity campaign in Amsterdam in August this year. ‘Otherwise, I couldn’t be born into multimillions. Just born. Nothing else.’
‘The wealth of the so-called top 1% is not just a large number, it directly translates to power over politics, economics, media & society,’ she added. ‘This power is out of proportion: in a democratic society, solidarity concerns us all. Wealth distribution strikes at the heart of democracy.’
Englehorn grew up in a mansion in Vienna and attended French-language schools, according to the Times.
She said she lived a privileged life that provided a “very, very narrow view of the world.”
In college, she gained a new perspective and in 2020, she began to think about wealth redistribution upon learning she would be a partial inheritor to her grandmother’s fortune when she died.
“I don’t think that I should be in power or in charge the way that I could be if I use my wealth accordingly,” Englehorn told the Times.
Austria, where Ms Engelhorn lives, completely abolished its inheritance tax laws in 2008.
Ms Engelhorn wants to see this reintroduced with higher taxes for the wealthy. She argues that it is unfair for affluent people to not contribute to society in this way.
‘I was born into a rich family and will one day inherit a fortune for which I never had to work,’ Ms Engelhorn said in a video posted to Millionaires for Humanity’s Facebook in May 2021.
‘Millionaires should not get to decide whether or not they contribute in a just way to the societies they live in, and without which they would never have become millionaires.
Social justice is in everyone’s best interest. Wealth taxes are the least we can do to take responsibility. Tax us.’
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