And during that time there was feudal relief, which was a one time payment for someone to inherit estate-in-lands or fiefs.
Kind of like if your inheritance was rich and powerful enough you needed to pay a tax to have the inheritance passed on. Otherwise the state didn't give a fuck. Sound familiar?
This is why estate taxes only kick in at a pretty large amount. For instance the threshold for the US federal estate tax to kick in is 13,990,000 dollars and up, for 2025. For the state I live in there is no estate tax.
If you're up in that range and above then you can also be pretty sure that no, they did not pay the same taxes working class people do, they probably paid less.
It's just used as a talking point for Republicans because people like yourself don't realize that by the time it kicks in the recipient is already set for life and people that rich probably weren't paying their fair share into the system anyways.
My hs reunion involved the organizer invited more of the class only when they realized they needed more people to help pay for the venue, myself included. This was done less than a week before the event.
Actually ended up reconnecting with some people that received the later invite in shared disgust so that's a nice thing. But it also made me realize how little I wanted to interact with any of the main group.