Cluster-Seminar Public Finances and Living Conditions

This study examines how inheritance and gift tax systems in combination with gendered parental transfer behavior strengthen gender wealth inequalities. Gender differences in transfers can be reproduced if men benefit differently than women from tax exemptions. This might happen when men and women receive different types of assets where only some are tax exempted. To investigate gendered parental transfer behavior and gender differences in tax rates, we draw on German administrative inheritance and gift tax data. Women were less likely than men to receive tax-relevant parental transfers, the value of the transfers were lower, and women and men differed in the asset types they received. Moreover, we identify a gender tax gap of 2% for inheritances and 22% for gifts. Our analyses suggest that men benefit more from tax exemptions on business assets. This study adds the tax system as yet another factor implicated in the reproduction of gender wealth inequalities.