“After the US Constitution, the tax code is the single most important document affecting Americans’ lives. But because it is a deeply opaque, seven-thousand-page document, few Americans have any idea what the code says.” So writes legal scholar Ray D. Madoff, who argues the tax code is one of the main drivers of our nation’s historic wealth inequality — allowing the ultra-wealthy to avoid taxation altogether while relying much more on workers’ payroll taxes than many realize. We unpack how the tax code works and what real reform would look like. Madoff’s book is “The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy.”

Guests:

Ray D. Madoff, professor, Boston College Law School; author, "The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy"

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