This week on Mountain Money, hosts Roger Goldman and Kevin Kennedy look at the structural flaws within the US tax code that help drive economic inequality.
Their guest is Ray Madoff, a professor of tax law and estate planning and author of the book The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy. Madoff breaks down how the current tax system, which was originally built to impose heavier burdens on the wealthy which now frequently gives the richest Americans a get out of jail free card.
Madoff walks listeners through the specific playbook used to avoid taxes. She explains how prominent billionaires take small or non-existent salaries to avoid standard income and payroll taxes, living rather by borrowing tax-free against their massive stock portfolios.
The conversation explores the historical shift in how big companies use stock buybacks to grow investor wealth without triggering tax bills, how the federal estate tax has become easy to avoid, and the "buy, borrow, die" trick—where the wealthy live off tax-free loans and pass their fortunes to their kids completely tax-free.
Finally, Madoff points out how the modern charitable deduction heavily subsidizes the priorities of the ultra-wealthy while giving little to no tax benefits to the bottom 90% of American donors.
