Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/109118 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 1032
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
This paper studies the evolution of the modern Swedish inheritance taxation from its introduction in 1885 to its abolishment in 2004. Our contribution is twofold. First, we compute annual effective inheritance tax rates for differently sized bequests and different types of inherited assets (non-firm wealth and family firm equity), accounting for all relevant exemptions, deductions and valuation discounts. Second, we try to account for the changes in inheritance taxation. Ideology rather than mass mobilization or revenue maximization appears to drive the sharp tax increases of the 1930s through the 1960s. We document increased opportunities for tax planning for the wealthy, in particular a series of drastic tax cuts on inherited family firms from the 1970s onwards. This rise of avoidance opportunities for the rich while more and more middle-class heirs paid notable inheritance taxes contributed to a loss of legitimacy for the tax and its ultimate repeal in 2004.
Subjects: 
Gift tax
Inheritance tax
Estate tax
Tax avoidance
Excess burden
Entrepreneurship
Ownership transfers of family firms
JEL: 
D31
H20
K34
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
482.81 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.