Most arguments I see in support of inheritance tax have two prongs: 1. Not many people pay it; and 2. You didn't earn the inheritance yourself. The first doesn't persuade me. A tax doesn't become fair simply because it falls on a minority. The second troubles me much more, because it suggests a particular view of the relationship between the individual, the family and the State that I'm not comfortable with. “You didn't earn it” assumes that the relevant unit is always the individual. Your parents earned their property, you didn't. Therefore there is nothing objectionable about the State intervening when property passes from one to the other. I can't accept that underlying premise The family is much more than a collection of economically independent individuals who happen to be related. People work, save, build businesses, improve farms and homes, and make huge sacrifices for their families. Generations care for one another and families undertake projects which extend well beyond an individual lifetime. The State should protect the sphere of family life, not seek to disrupt or dominate it. Intervention in a family requires a very high degree of justification. Where someone is being harmed, abused or exploited, of course the State should intervene. But the presumption should be that peaceful families can order their own affairs, care for one another and pass what they have built from one generation to the next. That is why “you didn't earn it” makes me so uncomfortable as a justification for inheritance tax. It treats the death of a family member as though property has somehow become ownerless and properly defaults to the State. If you want to say "it's unfair some people are born into families who have more wealth" then say it, and take the argument on its merits. The State needs tax to exist, and it has to gain it from somewhere. But the fundamental point underlying this is whether the State is justified in intervening in the peaceful affairs of the family? We don't belong to the State. Our families don't exist by its permission. And our property shouldn't pass to it when we die. The presumption should be that families are left alone. If anyone wants to override that principle, it needs to be justified.