Lifestyle

German heiress, Marlene Engelhorn, wants her billion-dollar inheritance to be taxed at 90 per cent

Published

3 years ago

October 31, 2022

German heiress, Marlene Engelhorn, wants her billion-dollar inheritance to be taxed at 90 per cent

A German inheritor mentioned she is ‘irritated’ that she is about to inherit billions of {dollars} from her grandparents and mentioned she needs practically all of her inheritance taxed away.

Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto died in September aged 94, leaving billions of {dollars} in tax-free inheritance to her granddaughter and heiress, Marlene Engelhorn.

Nonetheless, the 30-year-old, who now lives in Austria, mentioned she shouldn’t be interested by inheriting the windfall that got here from the household’s chemical firm.

‘The dream situation is I get taxed,’ Ms Engelhorn instructed the New York Instances.

Ms Engelhorn has dedicated to freely giving 90 % of her inheritance and needs the tax to go in the direction of the state for redistribution.

Ms Engelhorn additionally spoke to Vice Information final yr and instructed them: ‘no one ought to have that a lot tax-free cash and energy.’

Realizing that she would in the future inherit the fortune, Ms Engelhorn has spent the final decade campaigning for tax insurance policies that will see her wealth closely taxed and redistributed by the federal government.

Ms Engelhorn is the co-founder of Tax Me Now, a gaggle of rich folks in Germany who’re campaigning for larger taxes on their earnings.

Ms Engelhorn instructed the New York Instances that many individuals have reached out to her to ask for monetary assist after studying about her marketing campaign or seeing her on TV. She mentioned it pains her to say no as a result of she believes it ought to be for the state to resolve how one can redistribute her wealth by way of tax quite than it being her choice.

‘I’m the product of an unequal society,’ Ms Engelhorn mentioned in her speech for the Millionaires for Humanity marketing campaign in Amsterdam in August this yr. ‘In any other case, I could not be born into multimillions. Simply born. Nothing else.’

‘The wealth of the so-called high 1% isn’t just a big quantity, it instantly interprets to energy over politics, economics, media & society,’ she added. ‘This energy is out of proportion: in a democratic society, solidarity issues us all. Wealth distribution strikes on the coronary heart of democracy.’

Marlene Engelhorn, 30, campaigns for increased taxes for the rich throughout a Millionaires for Humanity occasion in Amsterdam in August 2022.

Austria, the place Ms Engelhorn lives, fully abolished its inheritance tax legal guidelines in 2008.

Ms Engelhorn needs to see this reintroduced with increased taxes for the rich. She argues that it’s unfair for prosperous folks to not contribute to society on this approach.

‘I used to be born right into a wealthy household and can in the future inherit a fortune for which I by no means needed to work,’ Ms Engelhorn mentioned in a video posted to Millionaires for Humanity’s Fb in Could 2021.

‘Millionaires shouldn’t get to resolve whether or not or not they contribute in a simply option to the societies they stay in, and with out which they might by no means have grow to be millionaires.

Social justice is in everybody’s finest curiosity. Wealth taxes are the least we are able to do to take accountability. Tax us.’

In a video posted by Millionaires for Humanity on their Fb account in Could 2021, Marlene Engelhorn mentioned: ‘wealth taxes are the least we are able to do to take accountability.’

Ms Engelhorn grew up in a mansion in Vienna. She instructed the New York Instances that she attended French-language faculties and was the kind of pupil to right different folks’s grammar errors. She mentioned she spent her childhood studying and taking part in soccer with boys.

She additionally mentioned she used to surprise why her buddies lived in small flats as a substitute of selecting to stay in a giant home with a backyard like she did.

‘Privilege actually provides you a really, very slim view of the world,’ she instructed the New York Instances.

Ms Engelhorn’s windfall inheritance comes from her household’s centuries-old chemical firm. Friedrich Engelhorn arrange BASF in 1865. The household additionally owned Boehringer Mannheim, producing prescription drugs and medical prognosis gear, till it was offered for $11 billion in 1997.

Forbes estimated the household’s internet price to be a staggering $4.2 billion.

Regardless of their wealth, the Engelhorn household have been beneficiant in donating to numerous philanthropic causes. The Engelhorn household have funded the work of younger scientists, archeology centres, and music applications.

The precise determine that Ms Engelhorn will inherit is unknown, because the inheritance could also be shared out between different members of the family.

Lifestyle

Marc Maron ends iconic podcast after 16 years: 'We're burnt out'

Published

13 hours ago

June 2, 2025

Press Room

Marc Maron ends iconic podcast after 16 years: 'We're burnt out'

Marc Maron announced on his show Monday that the podcast will air its final episode this fall. After more than 1,600 episodes, he says he and his producer were “burnt out.” Maron is pictured above in Los Angeles on May 29, 2025.

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Since 2009, comedian Marc Maron has recorded his topical and entertaining podcast WTF from his garage studio, interviewing famous people such as Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman and former President Barack Obama.

Before talking to comedian John Mulaney on his latest episode, the podcast pioneer broke the news that he’s calling it quits.

“We have put up a new show every Monday and Thursday for almost 16 years and we’re tired. We’re burnt out. And we are utterly satisfied with the work we’ve done,” he told his listeners.

After tragic loss, Marc Maron finds joy amidst grief with 'From Bleak to Dark'

The WTF With Marc Maron Podcast has produced more than 1,600 episodes and boasts 55 million listens every year. It’s one of the most-streamed and downloaded podcasts around.

Maron began the podcast with producer Brendan McDonald in 2009 after losing the late night radio show he co-hosted at Air America Radio network, whose opening line of every episode was, “Good evening geniuses, philosopher kings and queens, working class heroes, progressive utopians with no sense of humor, lurking conservatives.”

Marc Maron: A Life Fueled By 'Panic And Dread'

At the time, the podcast genre was new.

“No one knew what a podcast was. I was coming out of a horrendous divorce. I was wanting to figure out how to continue living my life. Things were not looking good for me,” he explained on WTF. “There was no way to make money. There was no way that we knew how to build an audience or anything. And it was crazy. We were doing it in a garage at the beginning. That was just a garage. It was filled with junk.”

WTF with Marc Maron grew a huge audience, gained sponsors and became influential. In 2010, Robin Williams spoke to Maron about suicide before his death. That episode was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, which noted that “Marc Maron’s popularity has helped to legitimize the podcast as a media format and created an idiosyncratic document of this moment of American culture.”

His 2015 interview with Barack Obama was noted by The New York Times as “almost certainly the first time that a sitting president has recorded an interview in a comedian’s garage.”

With Maron in his Los Angeles garage and McDonald producing from Brooklyn, the two-man operation “had a great run, but it’s time, folks. It’s time,” Maron said. “WTF is coming to an end. And it’s our decision.”

Marc Maron On Robin Williams, Barack Obama And Learning To Be A Good Listener

The podcast will end “sometime in the fall,” and Maron says it doesn’t mean he won’t do another podcast. The 61-year-old author of The Jerusalem Syndrome: My Life as a Reluctant Messiah and Attempting Normal has been busy acting. He starred in the Netflix series GLOW, as well as in his IFC series Maron. He has also had his own standup comedy specials and movie roles, including Joker (2019), Respect (2021) and The Bad Guys (2022).

This week, he has a new Apple show, Stick, with Owen Wilson, and next week the Tribeca Film Festival will premiere a documentary about him, Are We Good? The film explores how Maron’s life changed after the death of his partner, filmmaker Lynn Shelton, in 2020.

Lifestyle

'16 and Pregnant' Star Whitney Purvis' Son Weston Dead at 16

Published

14 hours ago

June 2, 2025

Press Room

'16 and Pregnant' Star Whitney Purvis' Son Weston Dead at 16

’16 and Pregnant’ Whitney Purvis
Son Weston Dead at 16 …
Born During Season 1

Published June 2, 2025 6:04 PM PDT

Weston Gosa Jr. — the son of “16 and Pregnant” star Whitney Purvis — has died … according to a message posted by Whitney to Facebook.

The former teen mom shared the sad news Monday … sharing a photo of the two smiling. Whitney has her arms wrapped around her son in the sweet snapshot.

Whitney Purvis and weston 2

She captioned the photo, “Rest in Peace, my baby Weston. I love you forever, precious. I’ll never understand why life has to be so cruel. You’ll always be my baby.”

Whitney did not share a cause of death in the post … but, Weston’s stepmom, Amy Gosa, also posted about Weston’s passing — telling fans they tried to wake him up at 7 AM today and couldn’t.

Whitney Purvis and weston 3

Amy says they tried CPR and called an ambulance. Paramedics rushed Weston to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The family is waiting on autopsy results, Gosa says … but, she adds Weston had a number of medical issues, including diabetes.

Weston was born back on April 2, 2009. Whitney was actually pregnant with him when she and her baby daddy — also named Weston — were on the show’s inaugural season way back in the day.

Purvis lost custody of Weston and her other son, River, in the years since leaving the show … and, she was arrested last year for allegedly failing to make child support payments.

We’ve reached out to Whitney … so far, no word back.

Lifestyle

Canada hates us, but it's not all Trump's fault. : It's Been a Minute

Published

1 day ago

June 2, 2025

Press Room

Canada hates us, but it's not all Trump's fault. : It's Been a Minute

The stereotype is that Canadians are kind, but they by and large do not take kindly to President Trump’s idea of making Canada our 51st state. As of April, two-thirds of Canadians considered the U.S. to be “unfriendly” or an “enemy,” and 61% say they have started boycotting American companies. However, Canadian dislike and distrust of the U.S. is not new. Canadian views of the U.S. have trended down for decades, from a high of 81% of Canadians holding favorable views of the U.S. under Clinton in the ’90’s, to hovering in the 50-60% range in the aughts, to only 24% favorable as of March. Meanwhile, 87% of Americans view Canada favorably. There’s a huge mismatch there. So what’s behind these decades of resentment? How does culture play into it? And what does it mean for our politics that our nations have fundamentally different ideas about our relationship to one another? Brittany discusses with Scaachi Koul, senior writer at Slate, and Jon Parmenter, associate professor of history at Cornell.