i'm not expecting anything but i don't want anything either. i can handle money but material things like houses and land and furniture just become a huge burden.
I don't expect to get anything. My sibling and I are both well enough off to take care of ourselves at this point. My parents deserve to spend their saved-up money on themselves. Plus, I think they've saved up enough to live off of, not enough to fund the next generation in the family! They don't have any other assets (land, buildings, etc.) to pass on. However, if they choose to give me and my sister something, I'm not going to fight them on it. It is their money and if they choose to give it to me as a gift, then I will accept. Inhertiance taxes are awful and illogical. "You didn't earn that money! Your daddy did! Tax his ass!" "Well, you didn't earn that set of golf clubs you got for Christmas. So I'm going to take your putter."
Seriously? So you grow up on a farm, working there for the past 50 years, and now you have to up and leave... and that seems fair to you?
The family farm crap is a myth. You don't have to pay taxes for the first 3.5 million dollars. http://mediamatters.org/blog/201012090019
Family farms are a business and are subject to different tax laws than personal property, but let us end that debate here. Inheriting a business seems much different than inheriting personal property. If you mean 'wealthier' when you say 'better off' then I would stick to saying that. I don't think everyone who inherits wealth is better off. I see such extra money and property either a problem or a burden. I have seen siblings feud between one another about toys they had when they were children or royalty payments from oil wells. It seems so odd anyone would allow that to destroy a realationship. Or a grandchild inheriting a house and becoming comfortable, spending inherited money just to get by, and never living to their full potential. Clearly it does not apply to everyone. Other arguments are that I don't want any extra stuff. My home is full with (too much) stuff, and any extra money will just lay around in a bank account or be spent on more stuff.
I don't see a problem with it at all, if it's done right. As parents, you try to raise your kids with their own work ethic and not to be lazy money-grubbing sharks. If you succeed at it, then they make their own money and don't depend on yours when you die. My parents have some money but anything I get from them will just be invested and saved for my kids. I prefer to make my own money, since that's how I was raised. My father-in-law is loaded and often jokes that when he dies, we are going to be millionaires. I just laugh and tell him we won't, but our kids will. And hopefully my kids will say the same thing to me 30 years from now.
