But you are talking about extreme cases, where people inherit millions of dollars, and that's probably 0.1% of all inheritance cases. I am arguing that this would hit regular people with regular incomes. You save up $100,000 for your child to go to collage over 25 years of your career, and then happen to die? Well, shit son, your child only gets $15,000, rest is taken by the government to make life more fair. But hey, at least they are not coasting through life on their daddy's money, right?

> I am arguing that this would hit regular people with regular incomes.

It won't, and it doesn't. You're misinformed on this topic.

There's a blanket exemption for estates up to $5,000,000: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...

Nobody is interested in taxing your kid's college fund--we just don't want the Waltons running our country for the next 100 years: http://walmart1percent.org/family/

Despite majority of HN thinking otherwise, there is world outside of US. Here in the UK the threshold for the inheritance tax is £325,000, and unless you live in a 2 bedroom apartment or a very small house in the countryside, you will most definitely hit it, which means that most people in the UK will have to pay inheritance tax on their family homes once their parents die. This is wrong in my opinion.

This article says the average home value is £187,000:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jun/03/uk-average-hous...

The tax is apparently 40%. So the heirs of a single person with a home worth twice the average will owe £11,600 in taxes (it looks like some of the exemption is transferable for couples, so ~0 taxes for lots of people).

It doesn't seem so onerous for people receiving a $600,000 house to have to pay $20,000 in taxes (it's certainly an amount that most owners of such houses will be able to plan for).

Then maybe there's a case for increasing the limit in UK tax policy, or perhaps granting a special exemption for family homes.

It's not a case for totally eliminating estate taxes.