| Whether and how estates and gifts should be taxed has long been a controversial subject, and the approach to estate and gift taxation varies among different countries. Arguments for and against various forms of property taxation has focused on concerns about the distribution of income and wealth, intergenerational equity, raising revenue, saving incentives, and other economic and philosophical issues.This dissertation has two purposes. The first is to examine the conceptual basis for various arguments for and against the current estate and gift taxation regime and proposed alternatives. The second is to integrated policy analysis of property transfer taxation with that of the rest of the tax system, notably, the income taxation.The analysis begins by considering how it would be optimal to tax property transfers if they are viewed simply one of many forms of expenditure by donors, and then it explores how the distinctive features of gifts and bequests may change the conclusions. The importance of different transfer motives have been discussed, and the analysis also is considered in the light of the importance of human capital in intergenerational transfers; differences between inter vivos transfers and bequests, between gifts to individuals and gifts to charitable institutions, and among gifts to donees having varying relationships to the donors; and the possibility that transfers are not explained by maximizing behavior.In the dissertation, I also give my attention to political economy of transfer taxation in this research. The present study is concerned with offering a normative and analytical framework to assess estate and gift tax policy, in particular, to determine what sort of policy best advances social welfare, understood as some aggregate of the well-being of individuals in a society. The political economy of estate and gift taxation is also an important part of this research, and I close my research with some policy implications for China.
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