Marlene is inheriting millions. She wants the taxman to take it away
By Emma Bubola
By the time her extraordinarily wealthy grandmother died last month, Marlene Engelhorn already knew whom she wanted to be the ultimate beneficiary of the enormous inheritance coming her way: the taxman.
“The dream scenario is I get taxed,” said Engelhorn, co-founder of a group called Tax Me Now.
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.151%2C$multiply_1.545%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/4ff9923d13d4fde9e68e282f2ea8be28f87d5f26 2x" alt="Marlene Engelhorn at a Millionaires for Humanity event in Amsterdam in August, where activists were calling for wealth to be taxed." width="584" height="390" />Marlene Engelhorn at a Millionaires for Humanity event in Amsterdam in August, where activists were calling for wealth to be taxed.CREDIT:NEW YORK TIMES
Engelhorn, a 30-year-old who grew up in Vienna, is part of a growing movement of young, leftist millionaires who say they want governments to take a much larger share of their inherited wealth, arguing that these unearned fortunes should be democratically allocated by the state.
For more than a year, Engelhorn has been campaigning for tax policies that would redistribute her eight-figure windfall — and anyone else’s.
“I am the product of an unequal society,” Engelhorn said in a speech at a Millionaires for Humanity event in late August in Amsterdam, where activists were calling for wealth taxation. “Because otherwise, I couldn’t be born into multimillions. Just born. Nothing else.”
Her family is no stranger to giving away huge sums. Her grandparents poured a chunk of their fortune into supporting young scientists. Her great-uncle gave millions to an archaeology centre. His cousin pledged nearly $US140 million ($220 million) to classical music.
But in Engelhorn’s view, it should not be the wealthy who get to decide which personal interests and passions deserve their inherited millions.
“There’s no need for another foundation,” she said as she sat by a canal in Amsterdam. “What’s really needed is structural change.”
Philanthropy to her only replicates the same power dynamics that have created the systemic inequalities she wants to see dismantled, with new tax policies for the super rich an essential aspect of that vision.
The Engelhorn family’s multibillion-dollar fortune originated with Friedrich Engelhorn, who about 150 years ago in Germany founded BASF, one of the world’s largest chemical companies. Another family company, Boehringer Mannheim, which produced pharmaceuticals and medical diagnostic equipment, was sold to Roche for $US11 billion in 1997.
‘There’s no need for another foundation.What’s really needed is structural change.’
Marlene Engelhorn
As a partial heir to that fortune, Engelhorn grew up in a mansion in a chic part of Vienna. She attended French-language schools, describing herself as the sort of student who was “correcting grammar mistakes when I heard them.” She played soccer with boys and read voraciously. She said she lacked any awareness of class privilege.
When she saw friends living in small appartments, she wondered why they did not choose to live in a big house with a garden, which is “much nicer.”
“Privilege really gives you a very, very narrow view of the world,” she said.
At university in Vienna, Engelhorn’s perspective began to broaden.
She volunteered with gay-rights groups and grew interested in the interconnection of racial, gender and economic discrimination.
‘Just go play’
In early 2020, as Engelhorn sat in a café in Switzerland, where she had gone to see her grandmother on her 93rd birthday, an accountant told her that upon her grandmother’s death, she would inherit many millions of euros.
He told her to enjoy herself. “He said, ‘This is just to be spent,’” Engelhorn recalled. “Like, ‘Just go play.’”
But to her, the news was more disconcerting than a cause for joy, spurring a tormented reckoning about her place in society.
“I was part of the problem,” she said she remembered thinking. “I am very woke and all, but now: What do I do with all these pretty thoughts?”
As she looked for advice, she entered the orbit of groups of pro-tax millionaires, whose members meet in person or on video calls to discuss their privileges — and how to get the state to strip them away.
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.151%2C$multiply_1.545%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/827bc67acfe419a9a0d06102e30f5b81b4beefbc 2x" alt="Engelhorn at the activist event in Amsterdam. The inflatable next to her is meant to represent “the elephant in the room” of tax justice. " width="584" height="390" />Engelhorn at the activist event in Amsterdam. The inflatable next to her is meant to represent “the elephant in the room” of tax justice. CREDIT:NEW YORK TIMES
Some of the members call the groups, which include Resource Generation and Patriotic Millionaires, a “safe space” where they can open up about what they call the “money story” — an honest account of the real origins of their social status. They acknowledge the crimes often at the heart of their family’s wealth and analyse the sexist and racist components that might have contributed to it.
Perhaps most importantly, the members are expected to share how they are engaged in what they typically term “reparations” to society.
Some of these groups emerged in the past 20 years or so, but recently, their memberships have expanded, driven by what Engelhorn calls “next gens of wealth” who have a different approach than many of their parents. Instead of trying to give away part of their inheritance, they are now asking how it is possible they inherited so much to begin with.
‘Rich kids clubs’
Newspapers have mocked some of the language of these groups, calling it sententious and self-reverential, and Engelhorn complained that some scornful press ridiculed them as “rich kids clubs.”
She credits the groups for helping her realise what could be done differently about wealth redistribution. If she had not encountered them, she said, “I might have also just settled with the status quo.”
Which is easy to do, she noted, “when you can literally afford not to care.”
Replies
Thought this would interest a few on hear ... doesn't get more left than this. There is nothing stopping lefties giving their fortune to the taxman but keep your mits off my cash.
Companies and wealthy people have opportunities to avoid tax that others don't. Poor people don't pay much. It's the middle class and employees that are lumped with the majority of the tax burden ( as personally felt, sure some super rich dude pays more, but not as a percentage of his assets or income).
The tax system is corrupt, for example: Amazon had sales income of €44bn in Europe in 2020 but paid no corporation tax.
Nothing makes these companies and privately wealthy individuals happier to see us fight amongst ourselves instead on focusing on them.
i don't think this lady is after your money. I think she just wants to see the wealthy and companies , which benefit from tax payer funded infrastructure, actually pay some tax.
The tech giants and multinationals are a different beast all together. No problem with them paying they're way.
Privately wealthy people do the same thing as these companies. All I'm saying is the looney left are the least of your worries. If these companies and tax dodgers would just pay some tax it would remove the burden on your average PAYG worker.
Or they could shut down operations and everyone who is employed by them would lose their jobs.
But they also employ thousands who do pay tax. Try and make them pay tax, they'll simply move their operations to countries who won't make them pay tax, and take most of the jobs with them.
I feel your pain Marlene
Interesting blog. What is money? You need as much for your security..If you are insecure in yourself you will always want more and more and probably never have enough. When you have a level of security to live the type of life you want you look at other things to do with your life where you are secure in pursuits where money is not part of your security Other interests become things that make you feel secure in yourself. I can understand people who have lifelong security needs in the bank and think about what they really want to get out of a satisfying life where money isn,t a symbol of success in life.
I can,t understand why it is a lefty issue at all. Putting value issues in a box is very simplistic.
Sounds like a modern day dumbc**t, yes, because the government will responsibly share the wealth with those that need it.
She could do so much good with her money, but is too fucken lazy to do it herself.
If i win the 160 mill in power ball tonight the government is getting fuck all
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