Inheritance tax before the ruling—too much, too little, too unfair?
12/February/2026
4:00 PM CET
PLACE
Zoom
LANGUAGE
German
Are large inheritances taxed too little or too much in Germany? For some, this question immediately raises fears about their grandparents’ house. Others argue that large fortunes have hardly been taxed at all to date. This debate will reignite when the Federal Constitutional Court rules on whether the current practice is acceptable.
We will discuss the origins, purpose, and effects of inheritance tax in our next New Economy Short Cut:
Inheritance tax before the ruling—too much, too little, too unfair?
with
Stefan Bach, DIW Berlin
Martyna Linartas, inequality researcher
on Thursday, February 12, at 4:00 CET – via Zoom.
Stefan Bach
is a senior researcher in the Public Economics Department at DIW Berlin. He studied economics at the University of Cologne, where he received his doctorate in 1992. He completed his habilitation in 2010 at the University of Potsdam. His research and advisory work focuses on tax policy, social policy, income and wealth distribution, climate policy, and the development of microsimulation models. In 2023, Professor Zucman received the John Bates Clark Medal of the American Economic Association, awarded to an economist under forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.
Martyna Linartas
holds a doctorate in political science and conducts research on economic inequality at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focuses particularly on issues relating to the (re)production of wealth, tax policy, and distributive justice in liberal democracies. She is the co-founder and director of the knowledge platform ungleichheit.info and editor of the business magazine Surplus. In April 2025, her book “Unverdiente Ungleichheit. Wie der Weg aus der Erbengesellschaft gelingen kann” was published.