The young Austro-German heiress, Marlene Engelhorn, descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn, the founder of the German chemical and pharmaceutical company Basf, has decided to create a group of citizens to decide how to donate part of the fortune she inherited, amounting to about 25 million euros.
Marlene Engelhorn, the inheritance and the selection
Engelhorn, who is 31 years old, has therefore sent a letter to 10,000 people, randomly selected in Austria, asking them to complete a survey. Among those who complete it, she will then narrow the field to 50 people of different backgrounds, who she believes represent the Austrian population, who will then help her develop ideas on how to distribute the money. "I inherited a fortune, and therefore power, without having done anything for it", Engelhorn said, quoted by Bbc News online, adding that "the state doesn't even want taxes on this".
The inheritance tax
Austria has indeed abolished the inheritance tax in 2008, and the heiress believes this is unfair. The American magazine Forbes estimated Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto's wealth at 4.2 billion dollars, and even before she died her granddaughter had declared that she wanted to donate about 90% of her inheritance. "If politicians do not do their job and do not redistribute, then I have to redistribute my wealth myself", she explained in her statement, adding that "many people struggle to make ends meet with a full-time job and pay taxes on every euro earned from work. I consider this a failure of politics, and if politics fails, then citizens must face it themselves".
This article is automatically translated