Gift tax in the United States
If a person is a non-resident alien for purposes of gift tax, taxation of gifts is determined in a different way. If the property is not located in the U.S., there is no gift tax. If it is intangible property, such as shares in U.S. corporations and interests in partnerships or LLCs, there is no gift tax.
Estate tax in the United States
Supporters of the estate tax argue there is longstanding historical precedent for limiting inheritance, and note current generational transfers of wealth are greater than they have been historically. In ancient times, funeral rites for lords and chieftains involved significant wealth expenditure on sacrifices to religious deities, feasting, and ceremonies. The well-to-do were literally buried or burned along with most of their wealth. These traditions may have been imposed by religious edict but they served a real purpose, which was to prevent accumulation of great disparities of wealth, which, estate tax proponents suggest, tended to avoid destabilizing societies and prevented social imbalance, eventual revolution, or disruption of functioning economic systems.