No. of Recommendations: 4
I have a cousin who inherited two apartments in Paris from his mother. She had practically no other assets. The inheritance tax was so high that he had to sell one of the two apartments to pay the tax.
That is the usual reason offered, in the US, for elimination of the "death tax", something along the line of "When Mr Green Jeans died, his son had to sell the farm, to pay the death tax".
That's a red herring in America where the exemption for a married couple is $30 million. Nobody has to sell the family farm.
If his mother had no other assets, and he did not want to spend his own money paying the tax, than any tax would require sale of one apartment to pay the tax, even if the tax is only 5%.
"Even if" is a hypothetical. In actual fact the tax was about 50%.
