You speak of frugal living, but why live frugally amassing great wealth? There is a difference between having money to be self sufficient and sitting on billions of dollars
My understanding is that the point would be to not tax someone leaving a much less significant amount to their children, in the case of either an untimely or expected death, and rather using more targeted methods to prevent the accumulation of billions, like taxing those who accumulate billions.
As long as taxes are paid, it's nobody's business what I do with my money, as long as what I do is not illegal.
Obviously many poor people will decide that few rich people must pay more.
I fail to see the problem, if you have more money than you could possibly use in a lifetime, why shouldn't that be redistributed through programs that benefit all of society, instead of whatever pet projects the rich person favors.
That person/family has shown some evidence that they're capable of investing money to generate an outsized return on that investment. I would tend to think they might be able to repeat that effect with the way they choose to reinvest the money, be it for societal value or charitable endeavors. I don't see evidence in balance sheets that governments have that same track record.
Society has made murder, theft, and rape illegal largely because of a fairly broad-based agreement that those are immoral.
Where there isn’t broad agreement on morality, I would prefer to avoid passing laws to regulate behavior and allow choice. (Roe v Wade/abortion being just one crystal clear case of this tension which I believe is generally best resolved in favor of individual freedom. I am free to follow my own morals where they are stricter than the law; I do not force others to follow them.)
Who decides that? The great and scholarly politicians we elect?
Sound familiar?
FWIW, it's not "obvious" that many poor people would decide that rich much pay a lot. That's not the case in US, for example. Sure, there're people who want to "make rich pay", but in general US system is already fair enough [1] (page links to multiple bipartisan sources).
[1]: https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/10/15/the-new-york-times-is...