Podcast Club ONLINE: Our Broken Tax System

On April 27, it was announced that enough signatures have been collected to put a proposed "billionaire's tax" on the ballot in California come November. Governor Newsom opposes the tax. Unsurprisingly, so do the tech titans. Would this tax make sense? Further, it has been reported that the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all income tax collected by the federal government. Is that true? And what's up with all those reports about billionaires paying virtually no taxes at all?

There's little doubt that our tax system is so complicated that it's basically incomprehensible. Ray Madoff, the guest of this week's podcast, The Ezra Klein Show, answers the questions posed above and helps to explain how our tax system works (or, some might say, doesn't). Beyond demystifying what's going on with taxes, she also gives some thoughts on how she thinks our tax system could be improved.

Madoff is a professor at Boston College Law School who specializes in tax law and estate planning. She is the author of two books including The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, named a Best Book of 2025 by both The New Yorker and Boston Business Review. Madoff was also lead author on one of the top treatises on estate planning. She is Co-founder and Director of the Boston College Law School Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good, a non-partisan think tank, and a regular media commentator on taxes and inheritance issues.

PLEASE NOTE: We require that attendees listen to the podcast below before attending the meeting to optimize discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX5U5DNUfBc

or

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/326-the-ezra-klein-show-31142409/now-playing

This podcast, entitled Our Tax System Should Make You Furious, is also available on the New York Times website if you are a paid subscriber, but the links above provide free access.

(1 hr, 5 min.)

What's a podcast club?
It's like a book club for podcasts. Each week we discuss an interesting and currently-relevant episode from podcasters like Ezra Klein, Michael Shermer, or Russ Roberts. We start off as a large group and spend most of the time talking in small break-out groups, which we remix 3 times during the course of the evening. Our conversations are casual and open. We ask that everyone speak respectfully at all times, and we encourage free and concise discussion relevant to the week's podcast topic. To do this, we try to adhere to Grice's Maxims: https://bit.ly/2p4uSQm

Ultimately, the idea is to help each other think a little differently, learn a thing or two and have some fun.