Revenue-starved governments should revisit inheritance tax - OECD

Reuters reports that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said that governments hungry for extra revenue as they emerge from the coronavirus crisis should revisit their inheritance and estate tax.

Exemptions, carve-outs and generous lifetime donations mean inheritance and estate tax is a minor source of revenue in most countries and often make inequality worse, the OECD said.

Among the worst offenders is the United States, where only 0.2% of estates pay inheritance tax while nearly 80% of the wealth is in the hands of the top 10% richest households.

Inheritance or estate tax make up only 0.5% of overall tax revenues on average across the 24 countries in the OECD group of mostly developed countries that have such levies.

While there was room for a bigger contribution to government finances strained by the pandemic, stiff opposition to changes in what critics sometimes call a "death tax" could be expected.

"It's the middle class that opposes a tax that the middle class doesn't pay," OECD director of tax policy and administration Pascal Saint-Amans told.