The heir to the founder of BASF will give 90% of his fortune to the needs of the public
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Austrian Marlene Engelhorn, a distant heir to the entrepreneur Friedrich Engelhorn, who founded the German chemical concern BASF in 1865, going to give away €25 million of his fortune to public causes. She had previously promised to give away 90% of her inheritance. It is not known what proportion of her net worth this €25 million represents, but her representative says it is “the vast majority”.
Unlike many other wealthy people who alone decide on which charities and other projects to spend their fortune, Ms. Engelhorn plans to involve her fellow citizens in this decision. She sent letters to 10 thousand Austrians who were randomly selected from a database of residents of the country. The goal is to create a group called “Good Advice” of 50 people with different sociological characteristics – different gender, age, income level, etc.
They will then spend six weekends discussing where the funds could best be spent. Discussions will be moderated and invited by experts on various topics such as wealth redistribution, funding of NGOs, etc. If the participants do not come to a plan supported by the majority on how this amount should be spent, the money will remain with Ms. Engelhorn for now. She herself will not take part in Good Council meetings.
“A good plan requires many points of view. And not just the opinion of the person who received the inheritance. Just because I want to improve society doesn’t mean I have a good plan,” Ms. Engelhorn explained of her chosen strategy. In her opinion, this option would give her “power that she should not have.” Ms. Engelhorn advocates a progressive tax scale and the introduction of large inheritance taxes. In Austria, inheritance tax was abolished in 2008.
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