It's a losing proposition to even try to stop people from passing their wealth to their offspring. People will tolerate some taxation but once it becomes too b

It's a losing proposition to even try to stop people from passing their wealth to their offspring. People will tolerate some taxation but once it becomes too burdensome, they will find ways to avoid it. That's the biggest problem with using tax policy for social engineering. We would see an unprecedented expatriation of wealth. If someone has a billion dollars worth of assets that they know will be confiscated by the US Government upon their death, they wouldn't keep it in the US. They'd structure their finances in such a way as to make it impossible or impractical for the US to get anything. One could become partners with (for example) a Costa Rican shipping magnate in a company located in Costa Rica so that upon their death, the US government won't get any liquid recompense. Sure, they can take that 49% ownership in the hypothetical Costa Rican company but then they have to find a buyer. Who's going to pay dollar for dollar to the US government for an asset that is only useful as a wealth sink? Do we ban foreign investment? What happens when the rest of the world retaliates and bans their people from investing here? Do we require government oversight for all investment decisions? That will certainly cure the problem of there being too many rich people. It'll make everyone poor. The only way to prevent the generational acquisition of wealth is under a totalitarian regime and that is a far worse problem than modern day robber-barons.