this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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The company isn't necessarily broken up, but the shares of the company are owned by individuals, and those shares go to the government. To your point, you could keep "the more valuable shares", but the shares are valued in currency by both you and the government, so it's kind of hard to say which are more valuable than others
We all seem to be thinking towards openly traded companies but how small(er) companies would go through such a process?
A traded company is not a head splitter to tax as an inheritance: shares are owned in a given number, there is a given number of heirs, each share has a given publicly tradeable value. Keeping with the Korean example, if there are 100.000 shares to split between two heirs, each heir receives 50.000 shares, which at a spot valuation of $2, implies each heir has to pay $50.000 in taxes, the 50% cut for the state.
I don't really see any logic in the state entering in true possession of company actives when what is due is its monetary value, which can be paid in cash by the heirs.
But a non-traded company will not be as easy to tax because it has no easily measurable value. A father leaving a company with a total social capital of $100.000 to two or three sons can in fact be leaving a company with a lot less true value, after considering loans, assets, values due to pay and receive, etc. And such an entity is not easy to split into equal parts.