Our Tax System Should Make You Furious
About this episode
Madoff's core argument: the American tax system is designed to let the wealthy pay far less than everyone else — and to make that design invisible. The conversation walks through the mechanisms: the step-up in basis at death, the carried-interest loophole, dynasty trusts, charitable deductions that subsidize billionaire foundations, and the effective 8.2 percent tax rate on the top 400 families found by the Biden Treasury. The system persists, she argues, because it is engineered to be boring: the IRS-congressional dance of chronic underfunding, the myth that the US is a low-tax country, and most Americans' inability to see how the rich avoid taxes. Klein raises the Trump-era tax bill and asks why Democrats rarely campaign on this; Madoff contends the public would be furious if it understood, and that a fair system is achievable — but only if the obscurity is pierced and tax avoidance's political economy is confronted.