Inheritance Tax in the Context of Valuation Law

The centennial celebration of the 100th Berlin Tax Conference prompted the two authors, as the event’s founding initiators, to turn their attention to inheritance tax—a topic that has been the subject of discussion from the Federal Fiscal Court’s 2002 referral decision (Federal Fiscal Court, May 22, 2002 – II R 61/99, FR 2002, 1060) up to the 99th Tax Conference (Richter/Welling, Conference Report, FR 2026, 476) due to numerous decisions by the highest courts and constitutional rulings, as well as ongoing developments in tax policy. Hardly any other tax policy issue has generated such great interest; one need only recall the necessity of video transmissions to an additional conference room due to the high turnout. And hardly any other topic has been discussed as intensely and emotionally at the conclusion of the Berlin Tax Talks as the inheritance tax. Taking this as an opportunity, we are summarizing the past six Tax Talks on inheritance tax and aim to use the insights from previous presentations and discussion contributions to look ahead, focusing in particular on the issue of valuation.