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An Austrian heiress made headlines when she announced she would let 50 strangers decide what to do with $27M USD of her inheritance. Katie and Henah discuss the potential impact of this kind of social experiment, how the lack of inheritance and estate taxes disproportionately support inequality, and why "generational stability" might be worth striving for more than "generational wealth."

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Our show is a production of Morning Brew and is produced by Henah Velez and Katie Gatti Tassin, with our audio engineering and sound design from Nick Torres. Devin Emery is our Chief Content Officer and additional fact checking comes from Kate Brandt.

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Mentioned in the Episode

• Heiress Seeks 50 Austrians to Give Away $27 Million, via NYT

• Guter Rat's mission statement

• Majority of Austrians favor wealth tax & there are no estate, inheritance, or wealth taxes

• US inheritance and estate taxes

• Wealth and inheritance in the long run, from Piketty and Zucman

• Taxation of wealth and wealth transfers, from Boadway, Chamberlain, and Emerson

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Katie:

Welcome back, Rich Girls and Boys to Rich Girl Roundup, the weekly casual discussion segment of The Money with Katie Show where we're super hip, fun and cool instead of so buttoned up. I'm your host, Katie Gatti Tassin. And here's a quick message from our sponsors before we get into it.

This week's upcoming main episode is about why poverty persists in one of the richest places in the world, AKA gestures at home of the free land of the brave, or whatever it is. What's the phrase? Land of the free, home of the brave.

Henah:

The land of the free, home of the brave.

Katie:

Yes. That place. The episode pulls on quite a bit of research and work from four books that I've read recently. And so we're going to cover everything from more affordable housing to tax law to social infrastructure, as well as how we tend to perceive the situation of being in chronic scarcity despite our own relative closeness to it. After all, we are all closer to living out of our cars than we are to Jeff Bezos and it ain't close. So there's that patented Money with Katie optimism for you. Okay. Onto the roundup Henah. How are we today?

Henah:

I'm good. I wanted to try something a little different this week. There's been some news going around about an Austrian heiress and something unconventional that she's doing with her money that I thought would be really fascinating for us to discuss. It feels a little bit like a Black Mirror experiment to me, but in a good way, like a White Horse, White Cape Mirror. So I'm going to, I'll lay out the scenario and then we can chat through it.

So Marlene Engelhorn is 31 years old. She is a descendant from Friedrich Engelhorn, which probably doesn't sound familiar. I had no idea who this was, but he founded the pharma company, BASF, which is very famous. And so her family's riches came from the sale of that company and her family's company. And so she inherited many millions of dollars when her grandma passed away in 2022. So before her grandma passed, she had said very publicly, Marlene, that she would be giving away 90% of her inheritance. And so now she's launched this new project that's called Guter Rat.

Katie:

Gutter Rat, that's so metal.

Henah:

It translates to good counsel. And so basically what she's doing is she's going to have 50 strangers help her decide how to give away more than $27 million US dollars. I think it's 25 million euros. And so we can link kind the Guter Rat, gutter rat website in the show notes…

Katie:

So hardcore, I love it.

Henah:

Where she has this really powerful message that she shares. And so I won't read the whole thing, but basically she sees this as her opportunity to fight wealth inequality and kind of tracks it up. So wealth is never an individual thing. It is created through the backs of other people. And I just happen to be born into a family that has a lot of money. And so the way that it's going to work, I guess, is she sent 10,000 invitations to randomly selected people in Austria via the post and ask them to fill out a survey. And then from whoever fills that out, she's going to pick 50 people, I guess next month who represent the larger Austrian population. And I think the part of this that was really cool to me is that you only had to be 16 years or older to qualify.

I would've been foaming at the mouth to be invited into something at that point. And so then they're going to meet, I think six times between March and June to figure out the best way to create this change. The people who are part of it are going to be compensated. They can remain anonymous unless they choose to tell everybody what they're doing. And they'll basically work with policy experts and experts who have tackled wealth distribution and the issues that come up during the process. And so I just thought, this is such a fascinating social experiment. And I was like, Katie, I feel like you'd have a lot to say about all of this.

Katie:

I have so many thoughts. Well, I think there's even the other element here is not just that she's giving it all away, but this element of getting other people involved. Because when I read about her perspective, it was basically like, it's not even up to me where this money should go, even the decision of how it should be redistributed. It shouldn't be up to just me. There should be a representative sample of citizens that are getting to make these calls. And I got this sense from one of her speeches when I was kind of YouTube-ing around, effectively she's saying our government failed at their duty to see to it that no one person disproportionately or unfairly benefits from the work of everyone else. So now I will redistribute it. So I'm like, okay, girlboss, go off. Just kidding.

But this is Austria, right? So give us the landscape of Austrian inheritance tax law vibes.

Henah:

Yeah, my AP professor's going to be shaking his head at me. I'm so sorry, but I'm going to try my best. So I believe that Austria does not have a state inheritance or wealth taxes,

Katie:

None. Wow.

Henah:

And according to Guter Rat, two thirds of their population actually favors taxes on wealth. I would say it's surprising, but I guess not really. Comparatively, the US and maybe Katie, you can shine a light on this is the wealthiest 1% in Austria holds 50% of their country's wealth. And that 1% is mostly those who've benefited from inheritances. And at the same time, poverty has increased in Austria. So it's an interesting demographic of people that are going to be working on this.

Katie:

Yeah, there's quite a bit of similarity too. I think when you hear 1% holds 50% of the wealth, that's actually worse than the US where in America, the top 1% holds about a third of the country's wealth.

Henah:

Not great either.

Katie:

So far more egalitarian. Obviously we're doing so much right over here, and the top 10% in America holds about 70%. And then what's honestly the most staggering? That sounds bad, but this sounds worse. The bottom 50%, the lower half of Americans holds 3% of the country's wealth. It is pretty dire. So we're kind of operating in similar systems in that way, it sounds like.

Henah:

Yeah, I mean, so I just looked it up. Austria's GDP is like 500 billion and…

Katie:

Small boy stuff.

Henah:

You want to guess what the US is. GDP,

Katie:

What is it, like $30 trillion or something? How

Henah:

Did you do that? $27.94 trillion. So pretty close. You were pretty close.

Katie:

Okay. So yeah, I think this is my American exceptionalism coming out, but I'm like, how can I make this about?

Henah:

Well, I was going to say, I do think though in that sense, $27 million is going to make a far bigger drop in the bucket for Austria than it would here.

Katie:

Yeah, that's fair.

Henah:

Also that it's just generally a huge sum of money, but at least it feels like it will go far.

Katie:

Also, it's just valuable in its ability to set precedent, I think.

Henah:

Yeah. So that's the part I wanted to talk about, which is to your point, she was saying, it's not my decision to redistribute this money myself. And she wrote, it grants me power that I shouldn't have. How should I alone decide what this thing is? And the fact that she says wealth is not created by one person alone. So how does this make sense? And we were recording this episode recently about poverty, and I was just thinking so much when we were talking about collectives and co-op models and things like that being for the greater good that this is kind of what that model is in real life.

Katie:

It's like wealth redistribution via co-op basically.

Henah:

Yeah. It's personified at this very specific example, and I don't know, maybe it's happened before, but I've never really seen it in this way. And so I thought that that was really cool and worth exploring. She also said that she does not have any veto power. So if these folks come in and they're like, we want to spend a hundred percent of it on climate change in this one specific way, that's it.

Katie:

A hundred percent on pizza parties for everybody.

Henah:

Unfortunately, no. It has to be for the greater good. Not everyone's collective cholesterol.

Katie:

Pizza party is so good for everyone.

Henah:

TBH, I would love a pizza party.

Katie:

That's what I'm saying. This idea of it creates situations wherein people have power they should not have. I think there's an interesting dynamic immediately where my brain goes is tax law and estate taxes and inheritance taxes, of course. And how do you use policy to correct for this? And it's interesting because it feels as though in the current paradigm there's this idea that, well, if I earned it or let's be more realistic, if I earned money and then I put it in the public market and time and compounding for 60 years earned the rest of it, that means that my heirs should get to keep all of it because I earned it and they're my kids. This very, I'll call it anti-meritocratic idea, but I think it stands to reason that if we are truly merits, if we really believe that each individual's wealth accumulation should be derived from their own talents, abilities, and efforts, which is the entire premise of capitalism, we would favor inheritance taxes because your taxation structure plays such an important role in incentives. And what are we rewarding or incentivizing by making inheritance is tax-free within reason or practically speaking, but by making labor more heavily taxed, the money that you earn simply by being born is more worthy of protection than the money that you earn by being a productive member of society. Logically that I can't square that.

Henah:

100%. We did an episode about estate taxes and gifts and inheritances and things like that, and I remember, isn't the amount incredibly high before you even get taxed to $13 million…?

Katie:

In 2024, i's the first dollar beyond $13.61 million. Effectively, the federal government is saying that is the threshold above which you now have a civic duty, but the first $13 million, you're good.

Henah:

I would love for someone to gift me $13 million and for me to be like, cool, I need all of this, but does anybody reasonably need $13 million that they could not give away some portion of that for the greater good, which I think opens up this maybe larger discussion about generational wealth.

Katie:

The FI space loves generational wealth.

Henah:

I feel very torn, right? Because my parents are immigrants. I'm first gen in this country. I've talked about this before on the show. My dad came here with $8. So to them it is of the utmost importance that they have something to pass on and that we create a better life for ourselves, et cetera, et cetera.

And I think it was an interview with JL Collins. You said something like when you're born into a middle class or upper middle class life, you kind of always assume that you're just going to keep going up. And it makes it really hard if you don't go up. And I think part of this is like, I don't know, do I feel like my kid, my future children would deserve?

Katie:

Do they deserve to have more than you did?

Henah:

Not that they have more than I do. I would love for them to be more stable and more secure and whatever than me. But what is the threshold that we're talking about here? What is comfort and stability and security versus excess?

Katie:

Yeah, the generational wealth of it all. I share your complicated feelings about this because my initial reaction to the concept of generational wealth is that it strikes me as a little campy. It's a little trite. I think sometimes the way that I hear people talk about it,

Henah:

Well, okay, how do you hear people talk about it in the financial independence world?

Katie:

It's like I'm building generational wealth for my, you've almost bypassed the living of your own life. You're focused on making sure your kids and grandkids are rich. And it's like, but hold on.

Henah:

I don't know. I feel like I kind of see that as the justification for why people think they should be like, yeah, yeah, I should get as much as possible and it's actually selfless of me because I'm trying to do this for my family. It's like, I don't know. That's really what's happening.

Katie:

As opposed to it being like you can just admit that you personally would like to be wealthy and secure.

Well, I'm also the skeptical of my own dismissal of the concept because typically I think the people who talk the most openly about it and feel the most passionately about it are those who have not historically benefited from it. So sometimes it occurs to me that it might be easy to be like, oh, well, it's kind of silly to obsess over creating wealth for your kids that you maybe don't even have yet. When I did benefit from intergenerational accumulation of security, I didn't receive an inheritance, but the fact that my parents were more secure than their parents meant that I was more secure than they were.

And so even you can look at something like homeownership and how historically that's been a way that white Americans have been able to build wealth for a century that effectively everyone else was prevented from engaging in meaningfully until the 1970s. So I'm aware that my own aversion to the concept is kind of like, well, yeah, it's easy for you to feel that way because it doesn't resonate with you on that level. But I think that there's something that's maybe more meaningful to strive for, which is generational security.

And to your point about thresholds, I think you then find yourself in these kind of circular discussions around, well, what's admirable and aspirational? And what should you aspire to give the people that come after you and what's just kind of gross and unfair? Where does it become okay, I am now not them. Every opportunity to create their own way in the world, I'm just giving them everything on a silver platter such that they don't have to work for it, and it's at the expense of everyone else.

Henah:

And there's definitely, it's a spectrum. It's a very far ranging spectrum.

Katie:

That's interesting. There were two papers that I found. One is a 2015 paper from Wolf, Piketty, and Zucman. They found that inheritances account for between 30 and 60% of personally held wealth in western countries.

Henah:

Damn.

Katie:

And another paper from Broadway, Chamberlain and Emerson in 2010 found that untaxed wealth transfers reduce equality of opportunity in a measurable way. That equality of opportunity as a concept ensures that people with similar abilities and levels of effort will generate similar results, that they'll face similar life prospects. And so when something like an untaxed wealth transfer occurs in this paper's conception of it, that there is a direct degradation of equality of opportunity because now you're basically introducing this kind of element of unfairness to the economic, I hesitate to call it a pyramid scheme because it's not a pyramid scheme, but I'm like, how do I, the chutes and ladders, right? It's like you're getting a boost that you didn't really do anything to deserve, and is that something that we want to incentivize and protect in society or not? That's a question that is worth asking. And I also think it's worth talking about what it would look like to tax these things more aggressively and what you could do with that. What do we stand to gain, really?

Henah:

That's what Marlene, I guess is trying to figure out, is if you were to tax me and take this money, what kind of difference could we actually make? So okay, walk me through what state taxes look like or how they work and how they changed.

Katie:

Let's do a 24-year speed run history.

Henah:

Okay, ready?

Katie:

This is Washington Post reporting. The threshold for paying the estate tax was raised substantially by George W. Bush and then extended and indexed for inflation under Barack Obama and then raised again in Donald Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which expires after 2025.

Henah:

Sorry, just to clarify, so that means that it might've been $10 million before, then it became $12 million and then it became $13M. Is that what you're effectively saying?

Katie:

Yeah, I think actually though it was substantially lower and then got jacked up to this eight figure sum, I think if I recall, it used to be quite a bit lower. But what's interesting is that what I'm referencing is the above which or the threshold above which they would start taxing an inheritance. And so total revenue from this estate tax has really plummeted in recent years. And so in 2019, only roughly 2000 estates were subject to the tax down from 51,000 at the turn of the millennium. So we raised only $14 billion from this estate tax in 2019.

Henah:

Okay. Can I ask a clarifying question? Are they less subject to tax because lawyers have now figured out how to get around it or because the thresholds are so high that whoever would've been taxed before it no longer applies or both?

Katie:

I would say primarily the latter, that the thresholds are just so much higher, but I assume there's also some of the former happening. It's probably also some of the people figuring out which again, these loopholes would need to be closed, not sitting here to armchair policy, this, that it would be so simple and easy. I think it's just a problem worth asking or worth solving.

But back in 2000, they raised like $35 billion adjusted for inflation. Now it's down to just around $14 or $15 billion. And I think you could, on one hand, you could argue that, well, $35 billion of tax revenue is a drop in the bucket for a country of our size, but it is a start and it could begin funding some serious initiatives that I think we all really want. It's estimated that universal preschool would cost about $350 billion over 10 years. So coincidentally,

Henah:

So $35 billion,

Katie:

$35 billion a year would foot that bill very nicely. It would be enough to provide free preschool to all American three and four year olds. So if you think about it through the lens of how do we best equalize and distribute opportunity so that people are not starting with huge headstarts that they did not do anything to deserve or to earn personally, what better way to use those tax revenues than by funding something like Universal Preschool where you're now getting people at a real inflection point for formative intellectual abilities and leveling the playing field when kids are that young. It goes a really long way in creating equal opportunity for success. So I realized I'm kind of cherry picking, but it just is funny to me that there's such a direct numerical correlation.

Henah:

Well, okay, so let me ask you, so that's $35 billion. Obviously this woman's inheritance amount that she's trying to give away is $27 million US dollars. If you had to decide where it goes, if you were one of these 50, what would you pick?

Katie:

Assuming we're in America and not Austria, I don't know what Austria's issues are, so I couldn't…

Henah:

Sure. Let's say here. Okay, and you can split it up. They've said you could split it up as much as you want.

Katie:

That's a good question. Given the amount, and I say small, relatively speaking, so it costs $35 billion to do universal preschool every year and we have $27 million, I would probably be inclined to do something where you're concentrating that full amount toward an effort that would really impact a specific community where it can go a really, really long way as opposed to trying to distribute it and chop it up. I'm thinking specifically of the Julie's Learning Center outside of Boston, that model and how you could probably start and fund a new Julie's Learning Center-type program in a city, something where it's a very concentrated effort that has a very holistic approach to helping people. I don't know in my mind at that scale, that's the more effective route than putting it towards something that costs many, many, many orders of magnitude more. What about you? What would you do?

Henah:

I'm inclined to agree with you. I think I would probably work on homelessness if I could with that level of money because I think there are many parts of the US where you can get people into homes for relatively little and that has these downstream effects that go beyond just having a place to live, particularly too, if they're in families. And I think when we did the poverty episode, you were saying that there are stories of people ending homelessness for $2,000, so it might be recency bias that I'm thinking of that, but I think it does go a long way. I think hunger is one, but I think the issue with hunger is that you're essentially providing the one meal but not forever. And so maybe it's a little bit more about agricultural farming and climate and all of that, but it's not going to solve most problems, but I think it would make a meaningful difference to the people that we could support.

Katie:

I also love the phrasing, the problem with hunger. You're like, man, there's a real bummer with hunger.

Henah:

I was going to rephrase the question and say if you got the same percent of a GDP to go solve a problem, but then I was like,

Katie:

Then we're doing math and

Henah:

We're doing a lot of philosophical…

Katie:

Who wants that? Oh, is it too late to say pizza party?

Henah:

Okay. Yeah, I'm…

Katie:

Pizza parties. Plural. Okay.

Henah:

She doesn't have a veto here, but I do. I asked the question, so I'm going to go ahead and say no. Alright. She said, I'm trying to help your hunger, bro.

Katie:

You're like, you want to solve hunger. Do I have a solution for you?

Henah:

Do I

Katie:

Imagine pizza parties

Henah:

Sponsored by Domino’s.

Katie:

…by Domino’s everywhere.

Henah:

How did you know that we were both going to say Domino’s? Okay. Well, the thing that I think is really interesting about this though is that on their FAQs page of this Guter Rat website, they have this—

Katie:

Every time you're like, so gutter rat…

Henah:

Gutter Rat. They have this question that says, how will they know if it's a success? And they write quote, in any case, it will have been a success for us to have initiated the debate on wealth and distribution. Secondly, the council will serve as an example for the impact that redistribution can have by redistributing these 25 million euros.

Thirdly, the council will have been subject to an external scientific evaluation from the selection process to the members and the weekends they spent together to the question of how the result was achieved and the impact it had. And so it feels like they're thinking very thoughtfully of how do we prove that this endeavor we're going on is worthwhile?

But it did lead me to think, how do you track that impact over time? Well, I mean obviously nonprofits and NGOs have been doing this for a long time to track. They know their impact and measurements and evaluations and all those things. But I was curious, do we feel like how many people's lives can we have benefited from this experiment? So I was just curious what your thoughts were, or do you think that maybe it's less about the number and more of just showing that this is possible?

Katie:

Yeah, I was going to say, I don't want to minimize the impact that the money is going to have. Absolutely. To the example of ending homelessness for $2,000. It's absolutely going to change people's lives. But I think what's more profoundly valuable is the example that it's setting and the ripple effect that that could potentially have.

And maybe part of that ripple effect is effective measurement that can then prove and go look at what this one woman was able to achieve by recognizing, look at what one person's wealth can do in this context as opposed to, if you've ever heard of this story of Chuck Feeney, he was a multi, multi multibillionaire, the duty free stores and airports. He founded those and then he invested a bunch of money in tech, and so he was a multibillionaire and he basically had houses in Aspen, in the French Riviera, and New York City, and all these locations around the world, and he was on yachts and parties and just doing the billionaire thing.

And then he decided, this isn't a meaningful way to live my life. And actually no one deserves to have this opulent of a life, and he secretly gave all of it away. He kept 2 million for himself. He established a trust, I think out of The Bahamas to give it away. So he didn't even benefit on his American taxes from doing this. There was no tax break associated with giving all this money away. And then he moved into a rented two bedroom apartment with his wife and just vibed. So he basically renounced all of it.

It's not the same thing. I think their motivations were very different. But I think that stories like that about people who achieved this unthinkable level of wealth that we all think, oh my God, I'd be so if I had all that, I would never give away my $27 million inheritance because I would be so happy if I could do all these things and have all these houses and have these boats and whatever. And I love his story because he basically was like, no, you won't. No, you won't be happy. Actually, the discomfort of having that much opulence knowing that all these people are struggling eats away at your psyche. So I think that that's also super cool. I think sometimes you have to make these things culturally right now we revere wealth. We think it's so aspirational to be super rich, where I think if you can make it actually cooler to do the opposite. We were watching Beef last night.

Henah:

Oh, love it.

Katie:

And when Ali Wong's character goes, “The Buddha only became the Buddha because he was a prince. He had something to renounce.”

But that's kind of the thing is you make it fashionable to not be super selfish and greedy and you show people there's a better way. That to me is what's so metal about what she's doing and so cool. It's like, damn, this is someone that could have anything she wanted and this is what she wants to do. That's awesome.

Henah:

Yeah, I mean, to me, she's the superhero. I worked in nonprofits. There aren't very many of people who are just willing to give it away, and so to me, she's an icon. She's a legend. She's the moment.

Katie:

Alright, I think that's a good place to wrap. You got some tea?

Henah:

I do. Okay. So we had introduced these crazy money stories that we've heard from people in our own lives and we asked you guys to write in and share any that you've heard, and we got this one email and Katie, when I tell you, baby, that this was wild.

Katie:

Oh God,

Henah:

Let me know what you think. Okay, hit me. This is the email: “One of my friends who doesn't make a ton of money thought that you only had to pay taxes on net profit income after all yearly expenses. So for example, my friend brings in $20,000 to their 10 99 job because my friend doesn't have a W2 job. So throughout the year they go and they spend all 20,000 on things like rent and gas and gifts and food and car maintenance and phone bills and new clothes and all the things…”

Katie:

Which yeah, as one does, if you only are having $20,000, it'd be pretty hard to, yeah, okay. Tracking.

Henah:

“But then at the year they had $0 left for savings, so therefore they had $0 of income to report on your taxes.”

Katie:

So

Henah:

“They wouldn't have to pay any taxes.”

Katie:

So, they thought, so they thought that it's like your personal spending operates like business expenses.

Henah:

Yeah, I guess.

Katie:

Because business expenses do reduce your taxable income, but just your rent and food.

Henah:

Well, so this person said they went and told them the truth and now they have to go back and file taxes for the past few years and probably also pay some penalties.

Katie:

So they were like, oh, I spent it all so I don't have to pay any taxes on me.

Henah:

They put zero taxable income.

Katie:

Oh, yoooo. At this point, did they even hire all those IRS agents, didn't they? I would just be under the radar. So hard not tax advice.

Henah:

I’m not laughing because I obviously feel bad for this person. I feel sorry for their, I guess misunderstanding and I understand because taxes are not straightforward. Yeah.

Katie:

This is not like I literally emailed my CP over the weekend and this subject on was I am struggling like hell. I'm like, please help me.

Henah:

Yes, I remember. I'm laughing because I'm usually so scared of literally having one misstep on my taxes, and then this person clearly has been doing this for a while and has not heard from the IRS.

Katie:

I'd be just sending that shit. Fingers crossed. At this point.

Henah:

I'm not sure. Oh my gosh. If you're an IRS agent listening to this, I'm sorry. I dunno. I don't know who this person is, but that was crazy to me.

Katie:

That is quite the misunderstanding of the tax code. Although like you said, can't blame 'em because frankly their understanding is only a little bit off if they do have 1099 income. If all that was business expenses, they would be fine. Although they're probably mostly fine anyway because at $20K, you have a standard deduction of $14,000. You would though have to pay self-employment tax on all of that. I think. I can't remember.

Henah:

I'm thinking that they probably have two grand of that $20K in taxes. It's not…

Katie:

Yeah, it's where the penalties come in that might start to where they charge you interest on the money you haven't paid. It's interesting because you're not paying me interest on the money you owe me when you have to send me a refund eight months late. I'm like, where's the interest?

Henah:

I started doing my taxes and you're going to scream so loud when you hear the number that I'm supposed to get a refund of.

Katie:

Oh my God. I don't even want to know. Don't even, don't tell me.

Henah:

I know I need to change my W-4, but so does this person, apparently with your 1099.

Katie:

We can have a big reveal episode where you can share the massive amount you're getting back and then gloat as I'm like, oh, I owe $50,000 again.

Henah:

Well, I don't make that kind of money to be owing $50 grand, but maybe next year.

Katie:

But you're going to get a nice refund.

Henah:

Yeah.

Katie:

Alright, well that is all for this week's Rich Girl Roundup. We will see you on Wednesday to talk about the persistence of poverty in the United States and solutions that might actually help solve it.