Abstract:
Heritage refers to something inherited from the preceding generations. The acquisition of heritage does not need any money and effort and this can cause higher income inequality and asset inequality. Therefore, the ones who possess heritage are possibly able to make more improvements than the ones who do not. As a consequence, the Estate and Inheritance Tax should be generally applied in order to reduce inequality. The purpose of this thesis is to primarily focus on the general principle, advantages and disadvantages of the Death Tax both in Thailand and other countries. This study also examines the result of the Death tax to Government Revenue provided that the tax was applied in 2009. Moreover, the thesis studies incidence of the Death Tax divided by income. Finally, wealth of the next generations is investigated, assumed that they owe the tax in 2009 by analyzing the Gini Index.The findings show that the Death Tax has a long history. Its objective is to intentionally build social equality. Besides, The Death Tax is the primary source of Governments revenue since the proportion of this tax is close to that of personal income tax and oil tax. Moreover, the Death tax collect from the poorest group is very small or no incidence of the Death Tax compared to the richer group. This study also calculate Gini Index as a measurement of income and heritage inequality and the result shows that death tax imposed in 2009 lower both income and heritage inequality and consist with revenue from different types of death tax. In the other word, this study found that death tax can help reduce some income and heritage inequality but the in small scale reflected by a small decrease in the Gini Index. This implied that Death tax is not a factor encourage wealth accumulation for low income people while inequality still exist in the economy or may become more severe, this study suggests that Death tax can still be used as a tool to promote equality