Introduction

Brian Sylvain: Over the last 600 years in England, the British nobility have constructed some of the most beautiful country estates imaginable. He says they were funded largely through the income of the surrounding land, which would be profitably farmed by tenant families. After World War II, for example, to attempt to rebuild its destroyed and debt crippled government, the Brits raised inheritance taxes called the state duty from 60 percent to 80 percent. This meant that fathers couldn't pass these estates on to their eldest male heirs without also passing on a tax bill that was often in the tens of millions of pounds.