YoI was too soft again. Last week I wrote here about inheritance tax, following an offensive by Stefan Tax, a lobby for family businesses, with the documents submitted. However, Tax turns out not to be just any lobbyist, but the son of Ben Tax, a member of Quote 500 (275 million), owner of the seed breeding company Rijk Zwaan. Quite relevant information, that. The telegraph and he did not mention this newspaper when publishing his ‘opinion’.
In his article he claims that it would be “laughable” to blame inheritances for wealth inequality, because the average inheritance would only be 26,500 euros. Very misleading; after all, many people receive multiple inheritances. More relevant is the average inheritance, which in the Netherlands amounts to 145,200 euros. Tax pretends not to know the difference between median and average; the fact that the average inheritance is four times larger than the median demonstrates the growing inequality of wealth.
Tax wants to scrap inheritance tax altogether, having managed to questionably expand the corporate succession system (BOR), yet another gift to the talentless children of the super-rich. Yet Tax has the nerve to compare a multi-million euro inheritance to welfare: “Nothing has been done about it, has it?” As if keeping the weakest afloat was the same as fattening up Luzac’s losers even more.
In addition to the well-known lie that taxes have already been paid on an inheritance, which we know from “centre-right” politicians such as Mark Rutte and Maxime Verhagen, currently a partner in the same lobbying firm as Tax, he deliberately lumps all sorts of things together to provoke misunderstandings about inheritance tax. Tax is therefore not in good faith: it is using the common man for its own selfish interests with complete and partial falsehoods.
The super-rich use the same tactics on wealth inequality as they do on climate change. They alternate outright denial with numerical sleight of hand and suggest that the ‘good guys’ should change their own behaviour: ‘so you give away your inheritance, right?’ It is reprehensible to publish in a newspaper a lying hoax from an interested party so ostentatiously as an ‘opinion’; even as advertising, such contributions should be banned.
In an interview with the Dagblad reformer It’s clear what kind of meat we have in store for Tax. Tax is a gentleman, 36, has six children with whom he leaves his wife at home, while he dedicates his life in a shitty office to receiving the fruits of his father’s labor as intact as possible. This polder Musk is against abortion, hates “woke culture”, doesn’t want to call women “who look like men” women, and thinks his own skin is “pig-colored, not white.” So you know enough: Tax spends too much time on his phone.
Redistributive taxes on capital play a crucial role in the prosperous, secure and innovative society we built after the Second World War. A society to which companies like Rijk Zwaan owe their existence. This issue is therefore much more black and white than people seem to realise: anyone who wants to get rid of taxes on capital wants to return to a world of inequality, economic stagnation and violence. History is very clear on this. Therefore, the shameless lobby of the dishonourable and short-sighted rich, who often want to get rid of liberal democracy, deserves firm resistance.
With his primitive bloodline thinking, Tax appeals to “solidarity between parents and children.” A bastard; as if that were the problem with our society. Tax, his six children and all of us, by the way, do not benefit from million-dollar inheritances, but from a safe society with opportunities for all, in which one gets what one deserves.
About the author
Sander Schimmelpenninck is a journalist, entrepreneur and columnist. from VolkskrantHe was previously editor-in-chief of AppointmentColumnists are free to express their opinions and do not have to adhere to journalistic rules of objectivity. Read de Volkskrant’s guidelines here.
