Heiress Donates 90% of €25 Million Inheritance to Charities

Photo: Martin Kraft via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Marlene Engelhorn is the Austrian-German heiress to a multimillion-euro fortune, inherited from her grandmother, who passed away in 2022. This fortune stems from Friedrich Engelhorn, who founded BASF, today’s largest chemical producer, and an ethically controversial company.

Initially, the heiress wanted the Austrian government to apply a 90% tax on the inheritance. However, Austria got rid of its inheritance tax in 2008; so, instead, she donated it. She planned to randomly select 50 Austrians and let them decide where the money should go.

After emailing over 10,000 random Austrians, she selected 50 who demographically best represented Austria, and from them, the “Good Council for Redistribution” was born. Engelhorn had only three restrictions on how they could use the money: for-profit ventures; groups with inhumane, unconstitutional, or extremist affiliations; and the members themselves or their associates could not be given the money.

In 2024, after six weeks of deliberations for which each member was compensated, they decided to divide the €25 million (almost $30 million) between 77 different organizations, covering a wide range of social issues. The largest donation of €1.7 million (nearly $2 million) went to the Austrian Society for Nature Conservation.

Back in 2021, Engelhorn co-founded the Tax Me Now movement as she believes it’s unjust for some to come upon such grand amounts of money simply because they “won the birth lottery,” as she puts it.

“Many people struggle to make ends meet with a full-time job and pay taxes on every euro they earn from work,” she explains. “I see this as a failure of politics, and if politics fails, then the citizens have to deal with it themselves.”

The Tax Me Now movement has gained support from other wealthy heirs like Abigail Disney. Engelhorn continues to be an advocate for socioeconomic justice.

Marlene Engelhorn inherited millions before she was 30. When the Austrian government wouldn’t tax her inheritance, she found others who would help her distribute it.