An inheritance tax or estate tax is a levy paid by a person who inherits money or property or a tax on the estate (total value of the money and property) of a person who has died. In international tax law, there is a distinction between an estate tax and an inheritance tax: an estate tax is assessed on the assets of the deceased, while an inheritance tax is assessed on the legacies received by the beneficiaries of the estate. However, this distinction is not always respected in the language of tax laws. For example, the "inheritance tax" in the United Kingdom is a tax on the assets of the deceased, and is therefore, strictly speaking, an estate tax.
In some jurisdictions the term used is death duty. For historical reasons that term is used colloquially (though not legally) in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth nations.
Read more about Inheritance Tax: Varieties of Inheritance and Estate Taxes, Other Taxation Applied To Inheritance
Famous quotes containing the words inheritance and/or tax:
“Say not you know another entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him.”
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801)
“I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)