“I inherited a fortune and thereby power, without doing anything to deserve it. And the government doesn't want me to pay inheritance tax,” Friedrich Engelhorn, founder of the German chemical company BASF, denounced in a press release.
Attending a meeting of economic and political elites in Davos this week, the short-brown-haired activist has long called for higher taxes.
Like hundreds of American “patriotic millionaires,” he founded the “Tax Me Now” initiative in the German-speaking world. Before taking action after his grandmother died in September 2022.
He devised an original solution: 10,000 letters were sent this month to randomly selected Austrian citizens. Ultimately, 50 people will be shortlisted.
Their mission: to propose ideas that would “benefit society as a whole” to redistribute 90% of the inheritance. All-expenses paid working sessions will be organized in Salzburg between March and June.
Marlene Engelhorn did not make a single comment at the end of the debates. Only if there is no consensus, she promises to think of a new method and returns the tidy sum at stake.
'The Ghetto of the Rich'
When inheritance taxes were scrapped in the ultra-conservative Alpine country in 2008, shocked that “those who struggle to make ends meet despite working full-time pay taxes,” the thirty-year-old decided to take things into account.
“In the face of government failure, it is up to us to right the injustices,” Marlene Engelhorn, who did not immediately respond to AFP's interview request, continued in her speech. In Austria, a country with no minimum wage, “there's no real wealth tax either,” he recalls.
At the Davos event, the NGO Oxfam once again condemned the “obscene inequalities” in the world, calling for higher taxation on the ever-richest multi-millionaires and billionaires.
Based on the latest estimates of the European Central Bank (ECB), according to Vienna economist Emanuel List, imbalances are evident within the euro zone, especially in terms of real estate assets, especially in Austria.
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“The richest 5% of households own 54% of the wealth, while the poorest 50% own just 4%,” he told AFP. Only Latvia ranks lower.
In the Austrian political class, the material is divided a few months before the legislative elections. While the Social Democrats advocate reinstating inheritance taxes, the conservative ruling ÖVP party and the far-right FPÖ have rejected such a plan, fearing it would weaken the dynamic network of family SMEs.
However, for Marlene Engelhorn, it's a question of “giving money back to society,” she explained in an interview with the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel.
Soon deprived of most of his resources, the former student of German literature must now consider employment for the first time.
“I am moving from the category of the rich 1% of society to the bottom 99%. Some may see it as a downgrade, I see it as an elevation in a democratic society. I am coming out of this dynastic ghetto of the rich,” she says, adding that she does not regret her decision.
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