Death duties are allegedly a tax designed to redistribute accumulations of wealth. Therefore, to the extent that they are successful, one might expect death duties to inhibit the trend for wool-growing properties to become more capital-intensive. This aspect of death duties appears to be in complete contrast to other rural policy objectives designed to encourage on-farm investment. However, while a survey of 58 death duty-affected properties established that death duties do reduce the rate of capital accumulation, the impact appears to be less severe on the wealthy than the less-wealthy families.