How to Stop the Billionaire Takeover | Gabriel Zucman on the Wealth Tax

Taxing the wealth of billionaires is not radical. What's radical is the status quo is the current situation where we allow the wealthiest and most powerful people in society to live nearly tax-free in their own parallel society. How can we accept that those people whose wealth by the way is exploding are allowed to pay less tax than school

teachers and firefighters? This is the battle frankly of the 21st century. Democracy versus oligarch. >> Welcome back to the Better Future podcast. This is an exciting one because we're about to hear from the world's leading expert in taxing the ultra wealthy. And he's going to share not just why we need to do it, but exactly

how to do it. My guest today is Dr. Gabriel Zukman. He's a professor at the Paris School of Economics and at UC Berkeley. [music] And he's the author of several books, including most recently, We Need to Tax Billionaires. In this conversation, we discuss how the ultra-wealthy hide their money from taxation, and how our current system of

taxes based on income allows them to do it. Then, we discuss the wealth tax, how it solves the problem, and how all the arguments against wealth taxes are just more billionaire propaganda. Finally, we dive into a very important upcoming vote in my home state of California, where we're deciding whether we're going to

tax the wealth of billionaires. This would be the first ever tax on the net wealth of ultra rich people in the history of [music] the United States, so it is a very big deal. Before we dive in, a quick reminder that Better Future is an independent podcast and we depend on your support. So, if you can, please