A theme in Atlas Shrugged is that wealth properly belongs to the people who make it. This includes the right to give it away or pass it to one's family. The fact that inherited wealth may ruin an heir who is not worthy of it does not entitle others to take the wealth by force, contrary to the will of the true owner. Rand's argument does not justify the inheritance tax; it's a warning to the wealthy.

Well - I would argue that anyone inheriting wealth should pay tax on that inheritance, just like on any other income. Wealth is created as much, if not more, by society as by the owner.

The rich do NOT pay inheritance tax (unless they want to) the middle class pay inheritance tax.

I come from a semi well off family on my father's side and have many well off friends. We all have either trust funds (family trusts) or our parents and grandparents just give us the money outright before they die or we get non-voting shares in our parents holding corporations that own 99% of the company or we get physical gold and silver before they pass.

The list goes on and on. The only people I have ever heard paying real inheritance tax were from the middle class. Rich enough to tax, poor enough to lack a good tax attorney.

There is no real way you can stop it. Even if you prevent parents from giving money to their children (!) then the rich can just turn it into gold chains and give them gifts of jewelry, or turn their wealth into priceless art and then give it to their children, or offshore bank accounts co-owned by father-son.

You can say that the owner would not have been able to create the wealth without the system. And if you've seen enough of the world, you know that this is fair. But when the wealth is taken from the owner, it does not go to the system. It goes to the politicians, who redistribute it to other individuals who did not create the wealth. That's the rub.