Estate tax also rises, to 40% from 35%, but inheritances below $5m are exempted from the increase.
It also shows that affordable housing has become an issue for all but the above-average earners and those coming into inheritances.
Who knew, for instance, that the annual value of inheritances in France has tripled from less than 5% of GDP in the 1950s to about 15%, not all that far from the 19th-century peak of 25%?
Inheritances are a prime source of inequality (as Piketty pointed out) and if we believe in a meritocratic society, we should ensure that all citizens start life with as equal opportunities as possible.
Inheritances are back at 11% of French national income.
In hilly, pastoral areas inheritances were more commonly split equally, which over the generations created a more egalitarian social structure and political tradition.
The president's boldest proposal, to reform America's tax system, has less hope of becoming law while he remains in office than Mr Clinton's scheme to permanently end the deficit.While Republicans can certainly sign up for the tax-cutting part of Mr Obama's suggestion, the idea of funding it by raising levies on capital gains, inheritances and big banks has gone down like a boulder.
But those on the business-friendly right fear that many of Germany's small- and medium-sized companies would not survive if they were taxed as ordinary inheritances.
The old models, they point out, ignore inheritances.
The second is that bequests from one generation to the next should be subsidised by the government, with smaller inheritances receiving higher rates of subsidy.
The word, which smacks of the undeserving rich and their unearned inheritances, has been largely dropped in favour of "the historical environment", a phrase that suggests that Britain's many houses and castles fell like acorns from the sky.Given this, the recent success of the National Trust, once caricatured as a provider of outdoor relief for aristocrats, must be rather galling.
