[3] There was a steep increase in the number of countries that implemented inheritance taxes throughout the 19th and early 20th century.
[4] For historical reasons, the term "death duty" is still used colloquially (though not legally) in the UK and some Commonwealth countries.
The UK, for example, subjects "lifetime chargeable transfers" (usually gifts to trusts) to inheritance tax.
[9] Differences in inheritance taxes on trusts and estates of natural persons have been described by one article as inequitable.
By that act a duty varying from 1% to 10% according to the degree of consanguinity between the predecessor and successor was imposed upon every succession which was defined as "every past or future disposition of property by reason whereof any person has or shall become beneficially entitled to any property, or the income thereof, upon the death of any person dying after the time appointed for the commencement of this act, either immediately or after any interval, either certainly or contingently, and either originally or by way of substitutive limitation and every devolution by law of any beneficial interest in property, or the income thereof, upon the death of any person dying after the time appointed for the commencement of this act to any other person in possession or expectancy".
The property which is liable to pay the duty is in realty or leasehold estate in the UK and personalty—not subject to legacy duty—which the beneficiary claims by virtue of English, Scottish, or Irish law.
Leasehold property and personalty directed to be converted into real estate are liable to succession, not to legacy duty.
Special provision is made for the collection of duty in the cases of joint tenants and where the successor is also the predecessor.
It is, therefore, usual in requisitions on title before conveyance, to demand for the protection of the purchaser the production of receipts for succession duty, as such receipts are an effectual protection notwithstanding any suppression or misstatement in the account on the footing of which the duty was assessed or any insufficiency of such assessment.
Estates under £1,000 (£2,000 in the case of widow or child of deceased) are exempted from payment of any succession duties.
[73] The United States imposed a succession duty by the War Revenue Act of 1898 on all legacies or distributive shares of personal property exceeding $10,000 (worth $308,902 in 2020 dollars[74]).
It is usually summarized with the donation tax, as many parents transfer their goods inter vivos to their heirs.
In Rome this tax was considered a donation and it depended on if the subject who passes their goods to their heir was alive (inter vivos) or deceased (mortis causa).
Decentralization on the Spanish autonomous communities You can calculate the tax you must pay following the state law.
However, in Spain the calculus of the amount you pay depends on the specific autonomous community where you have your tax residence.
The vicesima hereditatium ("twentieth of inheritance") was levied by Rome's first emperor, Augustus, in the last decade of his reign.
[104] The 5% tax applied only to inheritances received through a will, and close relatives were exempt from paying it, including the deceased's grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, and siblings.
[107] Estates below a certain value were also exempt from the tax, according to one source,[108] but other evidence indicates that this was only the case in the early years of Trajan's reign.
[109][110][111] The inheritance tax is extensively documented in sources pertaining to Roman law, inscriptions, and papyri.