Death Tax: Norms and Attitudes at the Crux of Mortality, Money, Merit, and Meaning

Inheritance or estate taxes link together death and taxation, often called the two absolute certainties of life. How are the dead and the living free or bound to dispose of property across time and place? And what do relevant enabling and binding policies and discourses reveal about the meaning of life and death? This project studies wealth transfer taxation institutions and their reforms over time and across legal systems, integrating data from legal, social scientific, philosophical, historical, and media sources. The project seeks to produce interdisciplinary knowledge on the “death tax” as a key to decoding the mysteries and interrelations of four big M’s: mortality, money, merit, and meaning.