Making sure the 'big people' pay their taxes would be a boost to democracy | Nicholas Shaxson

Close the loopholes, crack down on the havens: there are plenty of ways to make billionaires do the right thing

In June 2016, while researching an article for Vanity Fair, I asked Donald Trump if he was using tax havens to escape tax. I know a lot about tax havens, but I don't use them," he told me. There is greater incentive in many ways to keep your money in the United States."

Fellow billionaires may chuckle, because they know this too, following decades of attacks by special interests on the US tax system. Their goal, as the Texas Republican congressman Bill Archer once said, has been to pull it out by its roots and throw it away so it can never grow back".