Arkansas reaped a windfall when a Walmart founder, James L. Walton, known as Bud, died in 1995 with a fortune estimated by Forbes at $1.65 billion in today’s money. The next year, state estate tax receipts jumped 425 percent, to about $183 million in current dollars. There’s a hitch to state estate taxes: The rich can move to avoid their reach. If an aging Mr. Bezos moved before he died, establishing his residence in California, his fortune would produce no estate tax revenue. And yet the payoff from estate taxes can be so big that it’s worthwhile for states to impose them anyway.

Source: New York Times October 20, 2019 20:48 UTC