Governments believe the people should pay for their shortfalls. Switzerland proposed a 50% inheritance tax on fortunes above $62 million USD (50 million Swiss francs). Voters overwhelmingly said NO with 78% voting against the cash grab.
Leftist Social Democrats or JUSOs stated that the government needs to collect additional revenue to pay for climate change projects. “The super rich inherit billions, we inherit crises,” they argued. The eat the rich, save the planet rhetoric has fallen on deaf ears.
Switzerland currently has a decentralized inheritance tax system that attracts the wealthy. The nation has already lost its destination for capital by handing over all banking information to centralized governments. Adolf Hitler deemed it illegal for Germans to store money outside the country, leading the way to Swiss banking. Decades later, centralized governments deem it illegal to store money anywhere that they cannot track and tax it. Christine Lagarde began the SWIFT confiscation when she was the head of the IMF. Lagarde threatened all tax havens to turn over accounts or be removed from SWIFT. Not even Hitler violated the sovereignty of Switzerland where those in government today are far more ruthless and threaten other nations with ultimatums.
Why would the government be entitled to half of someone’s fortune? The government collects its share when you earn your wealth. They tax the assets you hold, tax capital once realized, levy your property annually, and then, even in death, the government demands more. Family businesses cannot operate long-term under these conditions, and to the government’s advantage, families cannot grow in power. Inheritance taxes are not designed to fund the government; rather, they are intended to prevent intergenerational wealth transfer and keep citizens dependent on the state.
Inheritance taxes are nothing but state-sanctioned theft, rooted in Marxist ideology, imposed at the moment a family is most vulnerable, and proof that the government views your assets as its property. Swiss voters see that their government is attempting to scare away the features that make Switzerland a wealthy nation. But the government will continue to ask the people if it may kindly continue robbing them through taxation until the day comes that the government simply takes it away.