back with me to continue our discussion on taxing the rich or not is nick hanour, he s a co-founder of venture partner capitals and joining me is dorothy brown, an award-winning professor of tax law and the author of the whiteness of wealth, how tax system impoverishes black americans and how we can fix it. dorothy, i want to stake with that beautiful sidelined book jacket, which reinforces the thesis of the book. in recent years, and we ve talked about it on this show today with the uprisings of black lives matter, there s been a growing awareness of how policing affects the exent to which black lives matter matters in this society. there has been with covid some amount of ring about how health care disparities affect the extent to which black lives matter matter in this society.
from republicans, from leftists, and even from the president, who tweeted the next day, it s time for the super-wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share in taxes. to make good on that pledge, president biden has unveiled $3.6 trillion of new taxes on the rich and big corporations, raising the top income tax rate, raising the corporate tax rate, raising the tax on capital gains over $1 million, and raising the inheritance tax, in order to expand the social safety bills. joining me now to dig into this discussion of taxing the rich is nick hanour, with second avenue partners. and a rare example of a rich guy who wants to tax the rich more. as well as dorothy brown, she s an award-winning professor of tax law, visiting georgetown law this semester. and also the author of the whiteness of wealth. how the tax system impoverishes black americans and how we can fix it. nick, i m going to start with
caught fire yes. so the dress was fire, yes? the dress is why we re talking about this. so god bless the representative. and i think it s really important to go back to what nick said. what s divisive is a tax system that causes black americans to pay higher taxes than white americans when they engage in the same activity. what s divisive is lower-income americans paying a higher tax rate than jeff bezos. that s divisive. but we don t call that divisive, right? it s insane! i could not agree more. i could not agree more. annan, i just go ahead. go ahead. i wanted to ask you, nick, you not only are rich, but you said you occasionally or frequently hang out with rich people. can you explain to folks, regular viewers watching this morning, some of the tricks that rich people use to not pay taxes. because it s not only a matter of the rates being low, which
there s nothing that she can do except hopes that joe manchin ends up being happy. he s very much in a position of leverage. as season who covers the decision space that around these folks, do you think joe manchin, senator manchin, is representing the interests of west virginia, the preferences and tastes of folks in west virginia around some of the issues in this legislation, access to community college, things on health care, things on climate. is he in step with his public, or is he working for forces unseen. this is a fundamental question about american politics right now, right? the extent to which there is legislation which is put forward, which will have, you know, not necessarily speaking, specifically, but every aspect of this package, but things which will obviously ameliorate conditions for a lot of americans. but, however, run contrary to core fundamental political
but you argue that a seemingly neutral thing that probably a lot of folks don t think of as being a race issue, the tax code, is a prime locust of injustice perpetrated against black people. can you explain why that is? so the tax code does not have a separate rate structure for black americans and white americans, but it operates in a system, an american citizen where systemic racism is prevalent. so when black americans get married, when we own homes, when we get jobs, tax law subsidizes how white americans get married, own homes, and have jobs, while disadvantaging black americans doing the exact same thing. so embedded in how the tax law operates is built-in disadvantage for black americans? nick, i want to ask you, you re i think you re joining us from down here on earth right now, but you re one of the only rich people who is not currently in space, it seems.