‘I’m creating the tax I would want to pay’: Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn on why she is giving away 90% of her wealth

Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy

As Marlene Engelhorn made her way through Davos last week, she was greeted a handful of times with expletives. The frosty welcome was not necessarily aimed directly at the millionaire heiress, but rather the message emblazoned on the metre-high placard she was lugging around with her: “Tax the Rich.”

Since 2021, Engelhorn, whose wealth traces back to the German chemical company BASF and pharmaceutical company Boehringer Mannheim, has called for taxes to be raised on herself and her peers in the 1%.

She’s now taking matters into her own hands. “I’m basically creating the tax that I would want to pay,” the 31-year-old said. “Since the government failed to tax me and fails to this day to tax me.”

Earlier this month, she launched an initiative whereby 50 randomly chosen people in Austria, where she lives, decide how best to spend the €25m Engelhorn inherited from her grandmother.

The Good Council for Redistribution, or Gute Rat für Rückverteilung, as the initiative has been named, will also be tasked with exploring the often overlooked question of how societies redistribute wealth. “Because we always do distribute it,” said Engelhorn. “To not redistribute wealth is as much of a distributional decision as to redistribute it.”

Underpinning the initiative is Engelhorn’s staunch belief that the failure to tax wealth such as her own – Austria abolished its inheritance tax in 2008 – distorts democracy by giving outsized political sway to the super-rich while simultaneously depriving governments of the resources that could help to address this power imbalance.

The council aims to directly challenge this, offering a high-profile demonstration of how democracy can be reclaimed through inclusivity and transparency, said Engelhorn.

These principles trickle through every step of the council. Invitations to join were sent earlier this month to 10,000 randomly selected people in Austria. Hundreds have since responded and statistical methods will be used to select 50 adults who reflect the country’s demographics.

In the coming months, members of the council will be paid to spend six weekends thrashing out thorny issues such as inequality and redistribution, aided by a roster of experts, before being asked to decide on how to redistribute Engelhorn’s inheritance.

Engelhorn, who provided an additional €3m in funding to cover the costs of running the council, will have no say in how the council decides to spend the money.

“I see that a lot of people are fixated on what has to come out at the end,” said Engelhorn. “The fact alone that there are people willing to do this work, willing to commit their weekend – six freakin’ weekends – to discussing with strangers about whether or inequality is just, and what to do about it … It should feed this hope that democracy is far from dead.”

Educated in private schools and surrounded by other wealthy people for much of her life, her strong views on what she called the “illegitimate power” wielded by the wealthy took 20 years to coalesce. “This is how being rich and being born rich, especially, works,” she said. “Because it’s normal to you. To you, it’s like everybody’s rich. Like, why would someone not be?”

She described the inheritance from her grandmother as a “catalysing event”, one that forced her to reckon with the way that wealth works, which she was slowly learning about.

No longer could she simply point to her family as her source of wealth, now she was in possession of millions. It didn’t sit well with her. “Something’s not right about me inheriting millions, not being taxed, while a person who is working 40 hours, maybe more, maybe two jobs, has kids perhaps … and they get taxed on their work.”

She soon realised that she wanted her money to reflect her values, a drive that led her to co-found Tax Me Now, which brings together wealthy people from German-speaking countries, and join the hundreds of super-rich who have repeatedly called on global leaders to tax their extreme wealth.

Her quest was made easier by the backing of her family. “Nobody is openly telling me that I’m doing something wrong or bad,” she said. “On the contrary, my mum once said: ‘I’m going to be your biggest fan.’”

She’s swift to acknowledge, however, that the issue of taxation is one that has divided the 1%. “One of the consequences, that I think also underlies some of the fears or anxieties of wealthy people, is [that] it will bring a question to the table that is very uncomfortable when you’re used to being excessive, which is: how much is enough? And who gets to decide?”

Ultimately Engelhorn’s goal is to give away all of her wealth and transition out of what she calls the “feudal wealth soup” she was born into. “I will have to find a job and make money the way that 99% of the population have to,” she said.

At least 90% of her wealth has been handed over to the council, while the remaining amount will be used to cover her rent and other financial commitments, as well as provide a cushion for her as she adjusts to working life.

“I do acknowledge that it’s not going to be easy,” she said. “To me, really, starting a working, taxpaying life is ascending. It’s a step up into the democratic part of our society, the democratic 99%. This is like a boost to who I am as a person in the 21st century.”