Marlene Engelhorn, the millionaire who would not wish to be one | EUROtoday

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With the Christmas draw this week there will probably be new millionaires in Spain and if any of the winners appeared just like the Austrian Marlene Engelhorn, they might ask the Treasury to use extra taxes than is suitable. Because that is how she is, this Austrian of German origin, a millionaire by inheritance who she would not wish to be. Engelhorn, 30 years outdated, anti-capitalist and queer, he inherited a fortune from his grandmother, Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto, surnames that readers of the economics pages would instantly affiliate with the pharmaceutical firm Boehringer and with the German consortium BASF, the biggest chemical group on this planet. The woman, who died in Switzerland on the age of 94, had a web value of 4.2 billion euros, in response to Forbes journal.

Marlene has solely inherited just a few tens of hundreds of thousands, however she desires eliminate 90% as a result of he considers that the choice about what to do with cash that has fallen from the sky shouldn’t be his however that of the State.

Marlene grew up in a home the place she missed how large she was and with out figuring out what need was as a result of she had all the pieces, she has embraced class consciousness. He is a board member of “Guerrilla”, a basis based mostly in Berlin that helps activists and grassroots actions in constructing pockets of resistance and radical social modifications. She collaborates with the “queerconnexion” challenge, which offers LGBTI training to younger folks, and, as an involuntary millionaire inheritor, she based AG Steuersrechtigkeit, (Tax Justice) in February 2021, a motion that has mutated all through Europe as Taxmenow or Millionaires for Humanity . The concept is that heirs to giant fortunes will give them up in favor of a better tax price, “like someone who enjoyed the benefits.” of wealth all life, “I know how skewed our economy is and I can’t continue sitting and waiting for someone, somewhere to do something,” he says. He has collected 44,000 signatures, however solely 50 come from millionaires.

Marlene doesn’t garner a lot sympathy, however she talks about her case as a result of she can not marketing campaign for truthful taxation of wealth and on the similar time be opaque. “I am looking for a public debate” as a result of “being rich implies power and in a democracy, power is not a private matter,” argues a millionaire who considers “unfair and undemocratic that only a few inherit large sums of money and the majority are left with nothing,” or that those that made democracy attainable are usually not acknowledged. accumulation of wealth.

“I haven’t done anything to be rich. In my case it was the people who worked at Bhringer Mannheim, the company in which my late grandfather had shares, and the people in the companies in which the money is currently invested. None of them benefit from that, only me,” laments Marlene and continues: “Decisions should not be made by individuals who have been lucky in the birth lottery, because we have a system for this: elected parliaments. It is an impertinence to society that I am allowed to have this power. “You can not belief the great will of the wealthy.”

Marlene inherited two years ago, but still He doesn’t know how to get rid of his millions. Create a company and wait to go bankrupt? She does not have the soul of an entrepreneur. Any NGO? Not at all. Donations? No way. “Philanthropy solely accentuates inequalities,” she says.

What a dilemma for Marlene Engelhorn.