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You don't normally pay inheritance taxes for spousally shared assets. Is that not the case where you are, or did you purposefully give this the worst framing?

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No, I'm not purposefully giving this the worst framing.

My main point is that setting it higher than gift tax rates is effectively pointless, and basically just punishes people for dying unexpectedly (and/or not planning ahead for their own death), and neither is desirable.

It’s not pointless. It may be counterproductive but kicking rich people when they’re down is popular among certain sections of society since it’s a subset of kicking rich people, which they like generally.

A purpose of death taxes is to even out the effect of not being born into wealth. I'd rather make it easier for living people by 'punishing' dead people than make it harder for living people by punishing them for not being born into the right family.

I absolutely see your point, but if you set inheritance tax higher than gift tax rate, then that rate difference does nothing for wealth inequality (because people are just gonna gift things in their 80's at the latest, or set things up legally to avoid the tax), while the inheritance tax is highly punishing for families of the unepxectedly deceased.

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