I’m not a top one percenter, or even within shouting distance of being one. But as a tax lawyer who’s worked with many ultra-wealthy clients over the years, I’ve had a front-row seat to America’s growth in inequality in the same way that many of the Patriotic Millionaires have.
I joined the staff of the Patriotic Millionaires in 2022 and, today, am the organization’s Senior Vice President for Tax Policy. Before that, I practiced tax law for nearly forty years, with a one year break to run for Congress in Arizona’s third congressional district in 2008. Since 2013, I have also been an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Over the course of four decades, I helped many wealthy households reduce their tax bills, either in the planning stage or in the relatively rare situation of an IRS challenge. Our tax law suited my career choice perfectly: more than complex enough to require the rich to seek expert assistance, while sufficiently loophole-ridden to allow for massive tax avoidance. While it may have shocked the average American a few years ago to learn that billionaires like Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos paid true federal income tax rates of under 1% on their economic income – far lower than the 14% rate that the average American pays – I found it entirely unsurprising.
From the standpoint of intellectual challenge, tax law was a great career choice. The tax law, a friend once noted to me, is an intellectual playground. In my case, being lucky enough to begin my career mentored by brilliant tax attorneys engaged in cutting-edge tax strategies, and going on to successfully represent the taxpayers in a precedent-setting case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals [Sacks v. Commissioner], his observation couldn’t be more apt.
So, I certainly don’t regret my career as a tax attorney. Nor do I question the morals of any clients who I helped (legally) avoid tax. They were just playing the cards that were dealt to them.
But I do wish I’d moved to my current position a decade or so earlier. The work I’m doing now is the most meaningful work I could do as a tax attorney. Our country faces many challenges, but the one challenge that must be met if we’re to meet any of the others is to arrest, then reverse, the extreme concentration of wealth in America. It’s the challenge that led me to run for Congress seventeen years ago. And our tax law lies at the heart of that challenge. There are many policy choices that impact economic inequality – antitrust, labor, and wage policies to name just a few. But the final defense against undue wealth concentration – the firewall – is federal tax policy. And that firewall currently is in a state of disrepair.
America’s extreme wealth concentration poses a grave threat to our democracy. In the 2024 presidential election, billionaires contributed 18% – that is, $695 million – of all funds raised by President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Given the extent to which the ultra-wealthy dominate the campaign finance scene, it’s not altogether surprising that public policies tend to reflect their interests and preferences. If the richest 400 Americans have 22,000 times more political power than the average person in the bottom 90%, as Professors Jeffrey Winters and Benjamin Page found, can we honestly say that we live in a democracy?
As our society suffers from extreme inequality, so too does our planet. As temperatures rise, ice caps and glaciers melt, and natural disasters increase in frequency and intensity, it’s becoming increasingly clear that climate change is not some far-off fear for the future but rather an existential crisis that is here now and accelerating with alarming speed. And while there’s virtual consensus that human behavior is driving the problem, the reality is that the ultra-wealthy are both the biggest culprits, with their private jets, superyachts, and (for some) private spaceships, and the biggest beneficiaries, holding assets the value of which is tied to our carbon-spewing way of life.
In their introductory tax class, all tax law students learn about Judge Learned Hand’s opinion in Gregory v. Helvering, which established a bedrock principle of current tax law: there is no patriotic duty to pay tax. Individuals, no matter how rich, are free to arrange their affairs so as to legally avoid tax. But while the rich have no duty individually to pay more in tax, the Patriotic Millionaires believe that collectively America’s rich have a duty to work for a tax system that prevents obscene accumulations of wealth, promotes a vibrant economy, and allows all Americans to share in the country’s prosperity. I couldn’t agree more, and I’m proud to work with the Patriotic Millionaires to advance the cause of tax justice.
Bob Lord, a retired tax lawyer and former Congressional candidate, currently serves as Senior Vice President, Tax Policy at Patriotic Millionaires and as an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He previously served as tax counsel to Americans for Tax Fairness and as an adjunct faculty member at the Arizona State University School of Law, where he taught classes in federal tax policy and estate and gift taxation. Bob’s work about taxes has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Arizona Republic, The Dallas Morning News, Newsweek, US News and World Report, The Hill, and numerous other print and online publications.
Bob is available to speak to the media about taxes, as well as excessive wealth and inequality.
To get in touch with Bob, please contact Emily McCloskey, Deputy Communications Director, at [email protected].