An heiress is seeking 50 strangers to help her give away her $27 million inheritance
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- Marlene Engelhorn, 31, is set to give away $27 million of her inheritance.
- Her ancestor Friedrich Engelhorn founded BASF, one of the world's largest chemical corporations.
- She is recruiting 50 strangers to help her distribute the money to worthy causes in Austria.
Marlene Engelhorn, a 31-year-old Austrian pharmaceuticals heiress and descendant of BASF founder Friedrich Engelhorn, is taking steps to address wealth inequality.
Engelhorn has set up a citizens' group to decide how to redistribute her $27.4 million inheritance from her grandmother, Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto, who died in September 2022.
Engelhorn sent out 10,000 invitations to randomly selected Austrian citizens over 16 to participate in the Good Council for Redistribution, the Daily Mail reports.
The council, consisting of 50 chosen participants and 15 substitutes, will meet in Salzburg from March to June, collaborating with academics and civil society organizations.
Childcare and travel expenses of participants will be covered with $1,300 for each attended weekend.
Engelhorn has said she won the "birth lottery" for inheriting wealth without personal effort and has been an advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy. In August 2022, she joined the Millionaires for Humanity event in Amsterdam, campaigning for increased taxes on affluent individuals.
Engelhorn sees her inherited fortune as an opportunity for scrutiny and redistribution. She has committed to distributing 90 percent of her inheritance and has spent the last decade campaigning for tax policies that heavily tax and redistribute wealth.
A vocal advocate for taxing the top 1 percent, Engehorn co-founded Tax Me Now in 2021, a collective of affluent individuals in German-speaking countries addressing extreme inequality resulting from tax policies, the Washington Post reports.
"In Austria, the wealthiest one percent hoards up to 50 percent of the net wealth," Engelhorn said, per the Washington Post.
Austria abolished inheritance and gift taxes in 2008, while the United States lacks a federal inheritance tax, with only some states imposing such taxes, the Washington Post reports.
In a 2021 Facebook video, Engelhorn said, "Millionaires should not get to decide whether or not they contribute in a just way to the societies they live in. Social justice is in everyone's best interest. Wealth taxes are the least we can do to take responsibility. Tax us."