Austrian-German heiress, 31, is to give away her $27.4million of her $4.2 BILLION fortune championing ‘redistribution of wealth’ after her country stopped inheritance taxes

An Austrian-German heiress, Marlene Engelhorn, living in Vienna, is setting up a citizens’ group as part of a plan to give away $27.4 million of her inheritance, given to her by her grandmother.

Engelhorn believes that her inherited wealth, acquired without personal effort, deserves scrutiny and redistribution among her fellow Austrians. She once described it as simply getting lucky in a “birth lottery.”

Engelhorn, a descendant of BASF founder Friedrich Engelhorn, expressed dissatisfaction with the absence of inheritance taxes in Austria after their abolition in 2008 and sees the current situation as unfair.

It is one of the few European countries that does not impose a death tax.

“I inherited a fortune, and therefore power, without doing anything for it, and the state doesn’t even want to tax it,” she said.

Her grandmother, Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto, left her an estimated $4.2 billion upon her death in September 2022, but Engelhorn had previously committed to distributing about 90 percent of her inheritance.

Knowing she would one day inherit the fortune, Ms. Engelhorn has spent the past decade campaigning for a tax policy that would see her wealth heavily taxed and redistributed by the government.

Engelhorn is co-founder of Tax Me Now, a group of wealthy people in Germany campaigning for higher taxes on their income.

She now wants to involve the public in the decision-making process and sent 10,000 invitations to randomly selected Austrian citizens, over the age of 16, asking them to participate in an initiative called the ‘Good Council for Redistribution’.

Interested parties can register online or by telephone. 50 participants will be chosen from the initial pool, along with 15 replacements in case of withdrawals.

The participants will then take part in meetings to be held in Salzburg from March to June, in collaboration with academics and civil society organizations.

Engelhorn says she wants to see wealth redistributed even in the absence of effective political action, and hopes to assemble a diverse council representing a variety of age groups, social classes and backgrounds.

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

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

The dream scenario is that I get taxes,” Ms. Engelhorn told the newspaper New York Times in 2022.

Engelhorn also spoke Vice News say to them in 2021: ‘No one should have that much tax-free money and power.’

“I am the product of an unequal society,” Engelhorn said. ‘Otherwise I couldn’t be born into millions of people. Newborn. Nothing else.’

“The wealth of the so-called top 1 percent is not just a big number, but translates directly into power over politics, the economy, the media and society,” she said. ‘This power is out of proportion: in a democratic society, solidarity concerns us all. The distribution of wealth goes to the heart of democracy.’

The meetings are inclusive, with childcare and travel reimbursement of $1,300 per weekend attended.

Engelhorn believes the discussions will be a “service to democracy” and says she will fully entrust her assets to the chosen fifty individuals.

“I have no veto power,” Engelhorn said: “I place my assets at the disposal of these fifty people and put my trust in them.”

If the council is unable to make a decision on how to allocate the money, the money will go back to Engelhorn.

“I was born into a wealthy family and will one day inherit a fortune that I never had to work for,” Ms. Engelhorn said in a video posted to Millionaires for Humanity’s Facebook in May 2021.

‘Millionaires should not be able to decide whether or not to contribute equitably to the societies in which they live, without which they would never have become millionaires.

‘Social justice is in everyone’s interest. Wealth tax is the least we can do to take responsibility. Tax us.”

In Austria as a whole, the debate over inheritance taxes continues, with Social Democrats pushing for their reintroduction.

The People’s Party, the current senior coalition partner, opposes the proposal and emphasizes its position against new taxes and the need for a higher net income for citizens.

‘To further burden the people of our country with its calls for a wealth and inheritance tax, the People’s Party offers relief. We reject new taxes; people should have a higher net income,” said general secretary Christian Stocker.

Engelhorn grew up in a mansion in Vienna. She attended French-speaking schools and was the type of student who corrected others’ grammar mistakes. She spent her childhood reading and playing soccer with boys.

She also said she always wondered why her friends lived in small flats instead of choosing to live in a big house with a garden like she did.

“Privilege really gives you a very, very limited view of the world,” she told the newspaper New York Times in 2022.

Mrs. Engelhorn’s windfall comes from her family’s century-old chemical company.

Friedrich Engelhorn founded BASF in 1865. The family also owned Boehringer Mannheim, which produced pharmaceuticals and medical diagnostic equipment, until it was sold for $11 billion in 1997.

Forbes estimated the family’s net worth at as much as $4.2 billion.

Despite their wealth, the Engelhorn family has been generous in donating to various philanthropic causes and has funded the work of young scientists, archeology centers and music programs.