>>You have certainly made or plan to make a family trust to minimize estate taxes and pass your estate to your heirs or worthy charities.
Presumably, but that's legal. FWIW, other countries did away with estate duties and gift duties and people still form trusts, because there are other good reasons.
Also, FWIW the Australians have a stamp duty when you buy property. Up to about 5%. Very little protest about stamp duty- because it's difficult to mooch out of and is built into the price of property. Also it reduces annual property taxes because you've paid a big lump up front, meaning it advantages those who hold onto their property rather than buying and selling constantly.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
