Endangering of Businesses by the German Inheritance Tax? – An Empirical Analysis

This contribution addresses the substantial tax privilege for businesses introduced by the German Inheritance Tax Act 2009. Advocates of the vast or even entire tax exemption for businesses stress the potential damage of the inheritance tax on businesses, as those often lack liquidity to meet tax liability. This submission tackles this issue empirically based on data of the German Inheritance Tax Statistics and the SOEP. The results indicate that former German inheritance tax law has not endangered transferred businesses. Hence, there is no need for the tremendous tax privilege for businesses in current German inheritance tax law. An alternative flat inheritance tax without tax privileges, which meets revenue neutrality per tax class according to current tax law, provokes in some cases relative high tax loads which might trouble businesses.

How do subordinate and dominant species in semi-natural mountain grasslands relate to productivity and land-use change?

Changes in agricultural practices of semi-natural mountain grasslands are expected to modify plant community structure and shift dominance patterns. Using vegetation surveys of 11 sites in semi-natural grasslands of the Swiss Jura and Swiss and French Alps, we determined the relative contribution of dominant, subordinate and transient plant species in grazed and abandoned communities and observed their changes along a gradient of productivity and in response to abandonment of pasturing. The results confirm the humpbacked diversity–productivity relationship in semi-natural grassland, which is due to the increase of subordinate species number at intermediate productivity levels. Grazed communities, at the lower or higher end of the species diversity gradient, suffered higher species loss after grazing abandonment. Species loss after abandonment of pasturing was mainly due to a higher reduction in the number of subordinate species, as a consequence of the increasing proportion of dominant species. When plant biodiversity maintenance is the aim, our results have direct implications for the way grasslands should be managed. Indeed, while intensification and abandonment have been accelerated since few decades, our findings in this multi-site analysis confirm the importance of maintaining intermediate levels of pasturing to preserve biodiversity.

A non-coding genomic duplication at the HMX1 locus is associated with crop ears in highland cattle.

Highland cattle with congenital crop ears have notches of variable size on the tips of both ears. In some cases, cartilage deformation can be seen and occasionally the external ears are shortened. We collected 40 cases and 80 controls across Switzerland. Pedigree data analysis confirmed a monogenic autosomal dominant mode of inheritance with variable expressivity. All affected animals could be traced back to a single common ancestor. A genome-wide association study was performed and the causative mutation was mapped to a 4 Mb interval on bovine chromosome 6. The H6 family homeobox 1 (HMX1) gene was selected as a positional and functional candidate gene. By whole genome re-sequencing of an affected Highland cattle, we detected 6 non-synonymous coding sequence variants and two variants in an ultra-conserved element at the HMX1 locus with respect to the reference genome. Of these 8 variants, only a non-coding 76 bp genomic duplication (g.106720058_106720133dup) located in the conserved region was perfectly associated with crop ears. The identified copy number variation probably results in HMX1 misregulation and possible gain-of-function. Our findings confirm the role of HMX1 during the development of the external ear. As it is sometimes difficult to phenotypically diagnose Highland cattle with slight ear notches, genetic testing can now be used to improve selection against this undesired trait.

Genomewide association for a dominant pigmentation gene in sheep

Most published genomewide association studies (GWAS) in sheep have investigated recessively inherited monogenic traits. The objective here was to assess the feasibility of performing GWAS for a dominant trait for which the genetic basis was already known. A total of 42 Manchega and Rasa Aragonesa sheep that segregate solid black or white coat pigmentation were genotyped using the SNP50 BeadChip. Previous analysis in Manchegas demonstrated a complete association between the pigmentation trait and alleles of the MC1R gene, setting an a priori expectation for GWAS. Multiple methods were used to identify and quantify the strength of population substructure between black and white animals, before allelic association testing was performed for 49 034 SNPs. Following correction for substructure, GWAS identified the most strongly associated SNP (s26449) was also the closest to the MC1R gene. The finding was strongly supported by the permutation tree-based random forest (RF) analysis. Importantly, GWAS identified unlinked SNP with only slightly lower p-values than for s26449. Random forest analysis indicated these were false positives, suggesting interpretation based on both approaches was beneficial. The results indicate that a combined analytical approach can be successful in studies where a modest number of animals are available and substantial population stratification exists.

Inheritance of ectopic ureters in Entlebucher Mountain Dogs

To test the hypothesis of a heritable base of ectopic ureters (EU) in Entlebucher Mountain Dogs (EMD) and to elucidate associated risk factors and mode of inheritance of the disease, 565 EMD were clinically investigated and population genetic analyses performed. Based on the location of the most caudal termination of the ureteral openings, 552 EMD were classified into three phenotype groups trigone, intravesically and extravesically ectopic based on results of abdominal sonography, urethra-cystoscopy and/or contrast-enhanced computed tomography. One-third (32.9%) of the phenotyped animals had normal terminations of both ureters in the bladder trigone, 47.3% had at least one intravesicular ectopic termination and 19.8% had at least one extravesicular ectopic termination. Multivariate mixed logistic regression revealed gender as a risk factor associated with EU as males were more often affected than females. Complex segregation analysis indicated a hereditary basis for EU in EMD and the involvement of a major gene in the occurrence of the extravesicular EU phenotype.

Paternal inheritance of growth in fish pursuing alternative reproductive tactics

In species with indeterminate growth, age-related size variation of reproductive competitors within each sex is often high. This selects for divergence in reproductive tactics of same-sex competitors, particularly in males. Where alternative tactics are fixed for life, the causality of tactic choice is often unclear. In the African cichlid Lamprologus callipterus, large nest males collect and present empty snail shells to females that use these shells for egg deposition and brood care. Small dwarf males attempt to fertilize eggs by entering shells in which females are spawning. The bourgeois nest males exceed parasitic dwarf males in size by nearly two orders of magnitude, which is likely to result from greatly diverging growth patterns. Here, we ask whether growth patterns are heritable in this species, or whether and to which extent they are determined by environmental factors. Standardized breeding experiments using unrelated offspring and maternal half-sibs revealed highly divergent growth patterns of male young sired by nest or dwarf males, whereas the growth of female offspring of both male types did not differ. As expected, food had a significant modifying effect on growth, but neither the quantity of breeding substrate in the environment nor ambient temperature affected growth. None of the environmental factors tested influenced the choice of male life histories. We conclude that in L. callipterus growth rates of bourgeois and parasitic males are paternally inherited, and that male and female growth is phenotypically plastic to only a small degree.