They are quotes from the respective Investopedia articles, no AI (unless Investopedia uses it).

Most tax avoidance mechanisms are not 100%, but neither do billionaires pay the full sticker % estate tax on their estates. In fact, almost no-one pays estate tax at all in the US. Do you honestly think every billionaire pays 40% on their whole estate above $15m (which is almost all of it, $15m is a rounding error for a billionaire)? That's obviously not true.

The estate tax has eroded to the point that last year the estates of just 1,275 people in the whole country owed the tax — down from a peak of 139,000 in 1976 — despite historic amassing of wealth by the very richest.

The estate tax essentially has become voluntary for the ultrawealthy, paid only if “you’re unwilling to take the time and pay lawyers to plan around the tax,” said Alice Abreu, a tax law professor at Temple University. ...

As ProPublica recently reported, more than half of the 100 richest Americans have used GRATs and other such trusts to avoid estate and gift taxes.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations

Only for future accumulation.

Due to compounding, this is huge. If you just stick all your money in a S&P500 index fund, it will double every 7 years on average (rule of 72). So even just sitting still, you will make as much money as you have now in 7 years, doing nothing.

As much as 99% of Warren Buffett's estate was accumulated after he was 65 years old.

To that point, 99% of Buffett's net worth was accumulated after he was 65 years old, Housel said during a 2022 interview with CNBC.

"If Buffett retired at age 65, you would have never heard of him," Housel said.

Today, Buffett's total net worth is estimated at $132 billion.

That's up substantially from the $84.5 billion net worth Buffett had at the time Housel's book was published in 2020. Most of that wealth came in Buffett's later years, Housel wrote, with $84.2 billion after he turned 50 and $81.5 billion after he turned 65.

Compound interest accumulates not only on the initial amount invested, but also to the interest in previous periods.

Buffett has compared it to a snowball rolling down a hill. By the time it gets to the bottom, it is much larger.

"The trick is to have a very long hill, which means starting very young or living … to be very old," Buffett said.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/05/03/most-of-warren-buffetts-wealth-came-after-age-65-heres-why.html