We're going to have a discussion with Saez and Zucman at the CUNY Graduate Center on the 23rd. While there may be some technical disputes, their basic point — that the tax code has shifted radically in favor of the wealthy — is rock-solid 1/ nytimes.com/2019/10/11/opi…
A key part of that shift has been a drastic reduction in effective taxes on corporate profits, from ~40% to <10% 2/ 
These tax cuts have been justified by the supposed need to attract foreign investment. But the most recent cut doesn't seem to have brought in any noticeable amount of money. And it's become increasingly clear that real investment flows don't actually respond much to tax rates 3/
What mostly happens instead is tax avoidance: firms find ways to report their profits in, say, the Cayman Islands, where they have little real business. And the persistence of tax havens is a choice: we could shut them down without giving huge gifts to the rich 4/
So on the larger point S-Z are right too: the death of tax progressively doesn't reflect economic necessity, it reflects corrupted politics 5/
