America's Tax System Is Broken artwork
Plain English with Derek Thompson

America's Tax System Is Broken

Mar 24, 2026 · 1 hr 4 min

If you're a typical worker with a salary, you have almost no control over how much tax you owe. But if you own a company worth billions of dollars, the income tax is, in the words of my guest today, "largely optional." Countries around the world struggle to get billionaires to pay a higher tax rate than middle-income families. Gabriel Zucman is one of the world's leading experts on tax inequality…