Estate Taxation with Both Accidental and Planned Bequests

Abstract

Actual inheritances are an hybrid of canonical types of bequests and in particular of accidental bequests and altruistic bequests. In this paper, bequeathed estate consists of two components: an amount intended by altruistic parents and an amount which results from the "premature" death of parents. Altruistic parents can also invest in their children's education. Taxing those two types of bequests separately is known to have different implications. The purpose of this paper is to see the distributive incidence of estate taxation when those two components are indistinguishable. The substitutability between education and intended bequests plays a key role in the tax design.

Keywords: estate taxation, inheritance, bequests motives

JEL Classification: H20, D64