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Comment by exporectomy | Hacker News Reader

And if you felt like passing it down your family tree, the number of people would have multiplied by an order of magnitude, diluting the share each grandchild ends up with.

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The richest woman alive [by far] is the grand daughter of L’Oréal founder. Bloomberg puts the family’s stake all in her name. The info bit also says French inheritance says 50% has to go to one person. So for at least a few generations, the majority of the wealth can remain consolidated.

That's a bit shocking about the French inheritance law. It must create awful family tensions when there are more than 2 children.

If I remember correctly the rules for minimum inheritance, it’s actually (n-1)/n of the inheritance has to be dedicated to the children, where ‘n’ is the number of children.

Each child is entitled to 1/n of that.

If I have 5 children, I have to give them 4/5 of the inheritance. Each one will have 1/5 of that 4/5.

And in the case of a sole child, she must receive 100% of 50% of the inheritance, at least.

OK. That makes more sense (except (n-1)/n=0 when n=1). In New Zealand too, you're required to give some inheritance to each of your children. There isn't a formula but lawyers seem to have observed that a minimum of about 10% each is acceptable.

In the U.S, it is ok to completely disinherit children. It has to be done so explicitly though.

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