Financing comparison: past vs. today

So I consider 100% inheritance tax to be massively detrimental to performance, no matter where the exemption limit exactly lies.

Those who today live off the money from their performance, aka work, will probably be affected by inheritance tax neither when inheriting nor bequeathing. Be honest with yourself about that...

Oh, ok, maybe I exaggerated a bit there.
Although the performance isn't gone, it is back with the state, which, as you yourself say, also has to deliver something. ;)

So I would also be satisfied with 80%.

You basically need a flawless method to separate the performance. So what has the wealthy really achieved, what has the state contributed, what the employees, what was just luck? Then you could also introduce a luck tax (not a bliss tax!).

Leaving aside the pros and cons.
I actually find it a pity that performance in our society is only (mostly) rewarded financially.
Why isn't recognition, prestige, fame and honor or simply having created something good enough for us? I think we need to work on that culturally.

Because that's our current economic system. Whether it stays that way, nobody knows. We only have a very limited horizon anyway.

And it's not like you are paid exclusively for performance. Rather, you can make money by making yourself hard to replace and/or taking risks. Everyone has the chance to become self-employed and "exploit" the employees themselves, or to specialize so much as to earn a lot of money from it.
In my opinion, the state has to ensure security, order and guarantee basic needs like survival and health. It should keep out of the rest. I find Germany too bureaucratic and overregulated.
Moreover, Germany has refinanced itself extremely cheaply in recent years and is now massively benefiting from inflation.
If it could now manage to operate efficiently, we wouldn't need special new taxes and could easily invest in the energy transition and other future fields of problems.

Whoever today lives off the money from their performance aka work will probably neither be affected by inheritance tax when inheriting nor when bequeathing. Be honest with yourself...

It doesn't affect me much personally. With what I expect to inherit and given the fact that it is split among three, I am below all possible allowances. But you are overlooking something. You can only live from work if you have work. And ideally, that should come from a company that thinks long-term. In Germany, we have many family businesses in the x generation. If you tax all of their assets away, that's the end of long-term thinking. If you want everyone to behave like the salaried top managers of a large corporation and only think until the next quarterly report...

since we currently have a purchase interest, I got a non-binding offer from Interhyp.. roughly speaking, I pay 2k monthly over 20 years and have a remaining debt of nearly 400k (and have paid almost 300k in interest)... that's pretty sobering (real estate price 650k plus renovations)

I almost wonder how they only ended up with a 2k rate o_O but yes, that problem is all too well known to us right now. We are currently facing the question of whether we really want to spend that much on financing or not. Someone once casually said more or less "who could finance well half a year ago will also be able to afford the extra 500 euros now," but I don't find the world that simple somehow. We have a financing amount of 480k with about 1000€ more (initial) interest per month than a year ago. That is really steep. And "then we just repay less" is only an option to a limited extent that satisfies the banks ;)

The colleague who closed a year ago has at least exactly the same initial repayment rate that we are currently discussing (2%), so realistically, that's a 1000€ higher burden per month. Yes, of course he has an infinitely long term with it, but he is able to make special repayments in good times or build reserves elsewhere, whereas we, conversely, can’t really say "oh, in bad times we just pay less..."

This is all assuming the financing even goes through. Even if we trust ourselves to manage it, it is quite questionable whether the bank will eventually just say "no," precisely because while it might work now, the risk of defaults if anything goes wrong is simply too high for them.

But you are overlooking something. You can only live from work if you have work. And ideally, that should come from a company that thinks long-term. In Germany, we have many family businesses in their xth generation. If you tax everything away from them, that’s the end of long-term thinking. If you want everyone to behave like the salaried top managers of a large corporation and only think until the next quarterly report...

Here comes again such a standard argument of the (economic) liberals. No one is saying that an heir who continues the family business must suddenly, practically right after the funeral, cut the tax from the substance of the company. First of all, higher tax exemptions are conceivable when continuing the business. Secondly, a deferral of the tax liability over decades (installment payments only from profits). Thirdly, for example, also only assets taken from the company’s wealth. What remains in the business assets is simply not taxed, etc. pp. We will not reach a solution to the problem with superficial arguments.

But then we move very far away again from the demand "100% off everything" and get closer and closer to the current system with its complex exceptions. Surely there are ways to improve, but I don't think it's completely wrong ;)