{"product_id":"the-second-estate-how-the-tax-code-made-an-american-aristocracy-hardcover","title":"The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eRay D. Madoff\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA revelatory book that lifts the curtain on America's most consequential public deception: how the rich get richer using tools the government gave them.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Amid conflicting narratives about the drivers of wealth and inequality in the United States, one constant hovers in the background: the US tax code. No political force has been more consequential--or more utterly opaque--than the 7,000-page document that details who pays what in American society and government. Most of us have a sense that it's an unfair system. But does anyone know exactly \u003ci\u003ehow\u003c\/i\u003e it's unfair? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Legal scholar Ray D. Madoff knows. In \u003ci\u003eThe Second Estate, \u003c\/i\u003e she offers an unprecedented look behind the scenes of America's byzantine system of taxation, laying bare not only its capacity to consolidate wealth but also the mechanisms by which it has created two fundamentally separate American societies: the working Americans who pay and the ultra-rich who benefit. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e This is not a story of offshore accounts or secret tax havens. In \u003ci\u003eThe Second Estate\u003c\/i\u003e, Madoff shows that the US system itself has, over time, been stripped and reconstituted such that it now offers a series of secret paths, hidden in plain sight, for wealthy people in the know to avoid taxation altogether. Through the strategic avoidance of traditional income, leveraging of investments and debt, and exploitation of rules designed to promote charitable giving, America's wealthy do more than just pay less than their share; they remove themselves from the tax system entirely. Wealth becomes its own sovereign state, and the living is surprisingly--and maddeningly--cheap. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRay D. Madoff\u003c\/b\u003e is a professor at Boston College Law School and the cofounder and director of the Boston College Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eImmortality and the Law: The Rising Power of the American Dead\u003c\/i\u003e and lead author of \u003ci\u003eThe Practical Guide to Estate Planning\u003c\/i\u003e. Her writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Review of Books, \u003c\/i\u003eamong other outlets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 192\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.9 x 8.6 x 5.6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 21, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51964711862573,"sku":"9780226835204","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0938\/3185\/6429\/files\/the-second-estate-how-the-tax-code-made-an-american-aristocracy-hardcover-4028840.webp?v=1775474951","url":"https:\/\/ishookbooks.com\/products\/the-second-estate-how-the-tax-code-made-an-american-aristocracy-hardcover","provider":"iShook Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}