[imagesource:euronews]

Marlene Engelhorn is making waves and changing the tide by splitting her fortune with the citizens of her home country.

The 31-year-old Austro-German heiress lives in Vienna and is setting up a citizens group to decide how she should give away much of the inheritance she received from her grandmother.

She wants 50 Austrians to determine how the €25 million (R510 million) of her inheritance should be redistributed, reasoning that she doesn’t deserve it.

Engelhorn is a descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn, the founder of the German chemical and pharmaceutical company, BASF, and inherited millions when her grandmother died in September 2022, per BBC:

“I have inherited a fortune, and therefore power, without having done anything for it,” she said.

“And the state doesn’t even want taxes on it.”

Austria abolished inheritance tax in 2008, one of a handful of European countries that do not impose inheritance tax – or death duties – which is something that Engelhorn finds to be unfair.

When her wealthy grandmother died last month, Marlene Engelhorn knew who she wanted to benefit from her large inheritance: the tax man.

The 30-year-old, who grew up in Vienna, is calling for structural change to how the ultrarich are taxed.https://t.co/n16dhzSLF0 pic.twitter.com/GWclnO8E1Z

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 21, 2022

True to her word, 10,000 invitations targeting randomly selected Austrian citizens began arriving in letterboxes in Austria this week.

Those who wish to take part in Ms Engelhorn’s initiative, known as the Good Council for Redistribution, can register online or by phone. From that initial sample of 10,000 Austrians who are all aged over 16, 50 people will be chosen, with 15 substitute members also selected in case of dropouts.

Engelhorn explained in a statement that “if politicians don’t do their job and redistribute, then I have to redistribute my wealth myself”.

“Many people struggle to make ends meet with a full-time job, and pay taxes on every euro they earn from work. I see this as a failure of politics, and if politics fails, then the citizens have to deal with it themselves.”

In May 2022, Engelhorn took to the streets to join a handful of millionaires in Davos calling for greater taxation of the wealthy:

Millionaires Marlene Engelhorn and Phil White in Davos, demanding that the rich get taxed. Time to wake up Davos. #TaxTheRich pic.twitter.com/hbCCvlCgMo

— Patriotic Millionaires UK (@PatMillsUK) May 22, 2022

The council to redistribute the heiress’s money would be made up of 50 people “from all age groups, federal states, social classes and backgrounds” who will take part in a series of meetings to be held in Salzburg with academics and civil society organisations from March to June this year.

“I have no veto rights,” she said: “I am putting my assets at the disposal of these 50 people and placing my trust in them.”

If they cannot come up with a “widely supported” decision on what to do with the money, then the money goes back to Engelhorn.

It is not clear exactly what proportion of her inheritance is being given away, although back in 2021 she said she wanted to hand out at least 90% of it because she had done nothing to earn it and had merely struck lucky in a “birth lottery”.

I can’t help but imagine what South Africa could be if we had more people like Engelhorn in the ranks.

[source:bbc]