Released: July 26, 2006

Should kids be left fortunes?

Source: By Rachel Breitman and Del Jones, USA Today

Actor and playwright Stephen Lang, 54, remembers when, at 7 or 8 years old, he asked his father to buy him a toy submachine gun. The request wasn’t extravagant. His father, Eugene Lang, was on the way to becoming a multimillionaire as the founder of patenting firm Refac Technology Development. But rather than buy Stephen the toy, Eugene suggested they donate what it would cost to charity. It went to a boys’ home in Queens.

“I was extremely upset at first,” recalls Stephen. But he says the gesture made an impression that remains with him today, and he doesn’t seem to mind that his 87-year-old father intends to leave most of his wealth to charity.

When Warren Buffett pledged $31 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in late June, he rekindled a debate among the rich over inheritance: whether it’s better to limit what you pass on and not spoil your heirs, or let them inherit the wealth and build on it. Buffett, 75, has often said that wealthy parents should leave their children with enough money to do anything they want but not so much that they are doomed to do nothing at all.

Eugene Lang shares those sentiments. Best known for creating the “I Have A Dream” Foundation, he has given away $150 million — more than half of his net worth — with much of the rest also earmarked for charity. After putting his three children through college, he says, he expected them to be essentially self-sufficient.

“A good education is to learn to be self-supporting so that they can build their own inheritance,” Lang says. “I never believed in luxuries. I still pick up a penny on the street.”

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