NDTV World Summit 2026: What Nikhil Kamath Said On Inheritance Tax

Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath on Thursday backed the inheritance tax, saying it is "not the worst idea" in the world.

Speaking at NDTV World Summit 2026, he said, "I don't like the idea of taxing somebody who is earning money in his lifetime and incentivising that but taxing people between generations when wealth is being passed through; I don't know in what manner. It has to be done in a manner where it's not an unrealized gain. It doesn't mean selling equity in your company and having to pay those as tax. They might be an efficient way to do it. It's probably not the worst idea in the world."

He recalled how he was earlier "trolled" when he had shared his views on inheritance tax.

An inheritance tax is a tax paid by the beneficiary who receives money, property, or assets from a person who has died.

Kamath also spoke about the Gini coefficient - which measures income inequality or wealth inequality in a society.

"It's doing badly in most pockets of the world, but in some countries it seems to be changing for the positive. It was quite rare, so I was kind of researching that...I feel like as long as wage growth in society is not going to keep up with asset price inflation, logically it's impossible for wealth inequality to come down. The government has to probably be interventionist in some way to make this Gini coefficient better," the investor and entrepreneur told NDTV's Editor-in-Chief and CEO Rahul Kanwal.

"...To the rich people in this room, it's not even altruism, but it could be self-serving to solve this problem when you can, before you reach a point where you have to. I think it's a lot worse trying to change it then," Kamath added.

Kamath is best known as the co-founder of Zerodha, one of India's largest stockbroking firms. He has also invested in several businesses, including Licious, Nourish You, Pee Safe, Subko, and Ather, an electric scooter maker.