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Originally Posted by MarchHare
There's something to be said for people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who are donating almost all of their wealth to charity instead of giving it to their children. Buffett once said (paraphrasing), "I want my children to have enough money that they can afford to do anything; I don't want them to have so much money that they can afford to do nothing."
I also read a story about Yu Pengnian, a billionaire philanthropist in China, who is giving away his entire fortune. When asked why he wasn't leaving anything to his children, he replied, “If my children are competent, they don’t need my money. If they’re not, leaving them a lot of money is only doing them harm.”
My wife and I are never having children. Are you saying that we have no incentive to accumulate wealth since we'll have no offspring to leave it to?
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That's great for Buffet, Gates and Yu, but that's a personal choice. I have no interest in government being able to dictate that my, or anyone else's, personal fortune should be distributed to anyone besides those of my choosing. That's one of the most egregious cases of over reaching I can think of.
And passing on wealth to children is but one of many motivating factors, you know that. However, the fact remains that if my fortune was to be redistributed by the government upon my death I'd lose a great deal of motivation to do anything. Why work anymore when all of your gains are simply going to be taken away?
If you want to tax people on earnings, fine, tax away. What you're talking about here is wealth redistribution on a Soviet scale.