An Austro-German heiress is setting up a citizens group to decide how she should give away most of the fortune she inherited from her grandmother.
10,000 invitations targeting randomly selected Austrian citizens began arriving in letterboxes in Austria this week. Anyone wishing to accept the invitation to join her Good Council for Redistribution can register online or by phone, and 50 people will be chosen.
Marlene Engelhorn, who is 31 and lives in Vienna, wants these 50 people to determine how €25m ($27m) of her inheritance should be redistributed. "I have inherited a fortune, and therefore power, without having done anything for it," she said. "And the state doesn't even want taxes on it." Austria abolished inheritance tax in 2008, one of a handful of European countries that do not impose inheritance tax - or death duties - and Ms Engelhorn believes that is unfair.
She is a descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn who founded the German chemical and pharmaceutical company, BASF, in 1865. Ms Engelhorn inherited her fortune when her grandmother died in September 2022.
"If politicians don't do their job and redistribute, then I have to redistribute my wealth myself," she explained in her statement.
Marlene Engelhorn believes the Good Council for Redistribution discussions will be a "service to democracy", adding that "I have no veto rights. I am putting my assets at the disposal of these 50 people and placing my trust in them."
It is not clear exactly what proportion of her inheritance is being given away, although back in 2021 she said she wanted to hand out at least 90 percent of it because she had done nothing to earn it and had merely struck lucky in a "birth lottery".