Have you ever heard of the wealthy young Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn? What a wonderful person \u2014 she inherited $27 million from her grandmother and is giving 90 percent of it to charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Engelhorn is a member of Millionaires for Humanity<\/a>, an international organization whose members are all multimillionaires and billionaires and who advocate for a worldwide tax on wealthy individuals. She is also the founder of Tax Me Now<\/a>, a German initiative that lobbies for higher taxes on the wealthy in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RELATED: A Global Minimum Tax on Corporations \u2014 A Spiritual Perspective<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Because her country, Austria, abolished its inheritance and estate taxes in 2008, she felt it was fundamentally unfair for her to inherit a fortune she had not worked for \u2014 so she decided to find a way to redistribute her inheritance with the help and the recommendations of regular Austrians. To distribute that inheritance, the findings of a panel of 50 Austrian citizens were just released<\/a>, naming 77 charitable organizations where Ms. Englehorn\u2019s inheritance will be donated. (She had no input into the selection process.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Engelhorn and others like her deserve our respect and admiration because they exemplify the Baha\u2019i teachings that call for the voluntary elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty, as expressed<\/a> here by Abdu\u2019l-Baha<\/a> in an address he gave in New York City in 1912:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 you must assist the poor as much as possible, even by sacrifice of yourself. No deed of man is greater before God than helping the poor. \u2026 Each one of you must have great consideration for the poor and render them assistance. Organize in an effort to help them and prevent increase of poverty. The greatest means for prevention is that whereby the laws of the community will be so framed and enacted that it will not be possible for a few to be millionaires and many destitute. One of Baha\u2019u\u2019llah\u2019s teachings is the adjustment of means of livelihood in human society. Under this adjustment there can be no extremes in human conditions as regards wealth and sustenance. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, the Baha\u2019i teachings directly ask the wealthy to voluntarily do exactly what Ms. Englehorn and others have done. Abdu\u2019l-Baha, in this speech he gave in Paris in 1911, said<\/a> that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n A financier with colossal wealth should not exist whilst near him is a poor man in dire necessity. When we see poverty allowed to reach a condition of starvation it is a sure sign that somewhere we shall find tyranny. Men must bestir themselves in this matter, and no longer delay in altering conditions which bring the misery of grinding poverty to a very large number of the people. The rich must give of their abundance, they must soften their hearts and cultivate a compassionate intelligence, taking thought for those sad ones who are suffering from lack of the very necessities of life.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There must be special laws made, dealing with these extremes of riches and of want. The members of the Government should consider the laws of God when they are framing plans for the ruling of the people. The general rights of mankind must be guarded and preserved.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The government of the countries should conform to the Divine Law which gives equal justice to all. This is the only way in which the deplorable superfluity of great wealth and miserable, demoralizing, degrading poverty can be abolished.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In his writings, Abdu\u2019l-Baha recommended that all governments adopt an enlightened progressive taxation policy, where those with sufficient means contribute a significant portion of their assets to a general fund meant to reduce the great disparity between wealth and poverty. Abdu\u2019l-Baha also clearly said<\/a> that: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Man reacheth perfection through good deeds, voluntarily performed, not through good deeds the doing of which was forced upon him. And sharing is a personally chosen righteous act: that is, the rich should extend assistance to the poor, they should expend their substance for the poor, but of their own free will, and not because the poor have gained this end by force. For the harvest of force is turmoil and the ruin of the social order. On the other hand voluntary sharing, the freely chosen expending of one\u2019s substance, leadeth to society\u2019s comfort and peace. It lighteth up the world; it bestoweth honor upon humankind.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Millionaires for Humanity has asked the world\u2019s nations to impose a minimum global tax of one per cent (1%) on the fortunes of all multimillionaires, saying that the wealth gap between rich and poor has never been greater \u2014 because the richest one per cent (1%!) of the world\u2019s population now owns more than half of humanity\u2019s household wealth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n RELATED: Why We All Need Wealth<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n An equitably-applied wealth tax could raise trillions of dollars globally and alleviate the entire world\u2019s severe poverty. Of course, such a tax would only work via fair application across all nations to be effective, rather than creating a spate of tax avoidance by multimillionaires changing countries of residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These enlightened, progressive taxation policies, then, will require the implementation of a system of global governance and the adoption of a universal language and a single script \u2014 all central principles of the Baha\u2019i Faith<\/a>. As Baha\u2019u\u2019llah<\/a>, its prophet and founder revealed<\/a>, \u201cIt is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever heard of the wealthy young Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn? 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