Part of the lure of America is the fact that it is known more as a country of meritocracy as compared to the historic European style of aristocracy, in which, a select few people of royalty, are able to inherit their wealth and power, generation to generation. Unfortunately, America has devolved more and more into a country that has created a form of aristocracy of wealth and power, by virtue of the fact, that the superrich are not taxed sufficiently when they are alive, and are further able to escape the most onerous taxes upon death, through estate tax lifetime exemptions, step-up basis in capital assets, foundations, trusts, charitable organizations, and so on and so forth.
For average Americans that are employed and working, they are liable to our progressive tax system, in which the more that you make, the more that you are progressively taxed, whereas, for those making their money through capital gains or qualified dividends, there are straightforward ways to minimize such when paying taxes. For instance, capital gains only occur when a security investment is actually sold, so if your investments are never sold, they will not be taxed, even if such an investment goes up considerably such as 500% or 1000% or even higher, and when the entity that owns this security investment dies, the beneficiary of that investment does not pay taxes on the capital gains, but instead is granted a "stepped-up" basis, in which, the security now owned by this new entity is granted the luxury of owning the investment at the current price of the security at the time of the grantor's death. That is to say, for instance, someone that bought Amazon at $50/share and died when the price was at $1000/share has successfully passed on that security to the beneficiary at $1000/share, with no tax implications, whatsoever. This same sort of formula applies to real property, such as houses, apartments, and condos, in which the beneficiary will own such at the "stepped-up" basis, no matter how much the property has appreciated since it was first bought.
Then there are investments that kick out dividends, of which qualified dividends max out at the highest rate of taxation which is 20%, as compared to the highest rate of ordinary income, that is, people that are actually laboring, which is 39.6%. In addition, rich people that are married are allowed to gift $28,000 annually in which the recipient of such, receives these monies tax free and while that doesn't seem to be a substantial amount of money, that money, done annually, over a long period of time, adds up, quite quickly. For those that actually do sell their assets and pay taxes on capital gains, those capital gains that have been held for more than one year are taxed at the top rate of 20%, as compared to the top rate of ordinary income which is 39.6%.
None of the above even touches upon the tricks of the trade that the superrich utilize in order to shelter their assets from the tax authorities by, for instance, of hiding their assets offshore. The superrich, by virtue of their wealth and influence are able to take reasonable laws that should apply to them, and again and again by utilizing lawyers, lobbyists, foundations, and the manipulation of tax codes along with pliant foreign countries, are able to minimize the taxes that they need pay while alive, as well as to minimize those taxes upon their demise. While it is one thing for the superrich to have their cake and eat it, while alive, it is an entirely different thing, for those that have enjoyed such, to be able to pass it on, basically untarnished by the tax authorities, to whomever they so desire, upon their death, robbing the masses of Americans of a fair share and a fair opportunity of the prosperity that all should have access to by a tax code that ostensibly was set in place so as to help re-distribute monies to those in need but has failed woefully short of doing so.