Or you could have the unintended consequence of zombie executives wandering the earth until it's in their family's economic interest to declare them dead and bury them in the ground.

My understanding is that this only happened in this case because Samsung is "too big to fail" for the Korean economy. Kia, LG, and Samsung combined make up 2/3rds of the economy.

Worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRzysFhyZ8Y (@11:45 they talk about TBTF)

They are too big to fail and that’s why the government wants a single family to control it?

It has been working well so far. There's the old saying "don't fix it if it ain't broken." I think there's plenty of arguments to make that it is broken, but there are plenty to say it isn't. There are different views on this held by different people and different countries. Some would say break it up so it isn't too big to fail. Others say it is the size that allows it to do so well. Unfortunately the nature of the conversation is extremely complex and often these discussions turn reductionist.

TBTF is the public justification they give, but the actual reason is probably that the chaebol and government have always been very intertwined, and not always in the direction of the government exerting influence on the chaebol.

I don't know why you're being downvoted, it's a fair question.

I assume that the government doesn't necessarily care to have a single family control it. But they'd perhaps rather not push a legal campaign against that controlling family, and risk causing harm to (or retribution from) Samsung in the process.

> 50% Inheritance tax would do wonders in the US.

The US is already at 40%. The Feds want 40% of anything over $11.58 million when you die.

Going to 50% isn't going to do wonders.

If you wanted to severely adjust the wealth inequality caused by the extreme wealth of the top 0.01%, you'd want a 80% or 90% rate.

Increasingly the US Senate is rich enough it'd never be allowed to become law.

Only 0.002% of estates pay the tax every year. Among the wealthy that are close to retirement or death, the smart ones transfer their wealth to insurance or separate entities like a foundation, limited liability company, family limited partnership, or charitable trust.

That is wrong by a factor of ~100. 0.2% of estates in 2017 paid an estate tax. [0]

[0] - https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-shou...

I believe in the US it's around 40 percent for billionaires.

The federal tax kicks in at $11.5 million (although that is scheduled to sunset in a few years). If you happen to die in the wrong state the rate can be as high as 60%

On the other hand the government should not just steal half a family's wealth just because a guy died.