Gabriel Zucman

And some people suspected that this was the case.

But until a few years ago, there was no study to demonstrate it with actual data.

Perhaps let me give one example so that everybody understands.

So a few years ago, you had revelations by the US media ProPublica on the taxes paid by US billionaires.

And you saw people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos in some years reporting very little taxable income and paying very little in income tax.

Even in one year, Jeff Bezos says, oh, look, I'm so poor that I'm going to claim family benefits.

And he receives family benefits.

That was about 10 years ago.

The revelations were in 2022, I think.

And he received a check from the IRS.

One of the wealthiest persons in the world.

And look...

Don't get me wrong.

There's nothing illegal in that.

It's not fraud.

It's the way the system works.

What the recent studies have shown, there's been a wave of research that started a few years ago, and now we have studies for about 10 countries, is that it's not just a few isolated cases like Bezos.

It's a structural feature that the wealthiest persons in the world can easily structure their wealth

so that they will not have any taxable income to report.

How Bezos did it is very simple.