>>So what? The people who earned their wealth have every right to spend it as they see fit.

And the people who own the currency and financial system (iow the whole citizenry, not just the aristocracy) have every right to set inheritance or other transaction fees as they see fit. After all, those who make most use of and clearly have reaped the most from the financial structures maintained by the citizenry reasonably ought to be contributing proportionately to the costs of the institutions and stability without which accumulated dollars mean nothing.

In fairness, corporate taxation has a particular issue in the US that people may not be aware of: imputation credits aka franking credits. In general, corporates pay taxes and distribute dividends that then are taxed again. In certain nations, you can impute the taxes already paid to determine what tax, if any, is owed on the received dividend income. Often no tax or only a few percent only is owed after imputation. English-speaking first-world nations tend to have at least a partial imputation regime, but of course the US does not. Since the wealthy receive most dividends, in this respect you could argue that they already are paying more in the US. Which is fine but it doesn't solve the challenge of avoiding huge imbalances that historically seem to end up with peasantry organized by disenfranchised middle class people to stage a revolt.

FWIW, if you want to look at distortions caused by aristocratic self-serving behavior without societal purpose: check out a smaller currency such as the NZ dollar whose daily turnover exceeds the real annual GDP. The cost of institutions to realize that massive speculative transactioning is borne by the peasantry. Why?