The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations — ProPublica

… Roosevelt summed up the stakes of this historic probe in a letter to Congress. "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society," he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: "Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount."…

Worries about outsized wealth consolidated in the hands of a few date back to the Founding Fathers. When he was a Virginia legislator, Thomas Jefferson sought legal ways to prevent the perpetuation of great fortunes, fearing the rise of American-style feudalism. An "aristocracy of wealth," Jefferson warned in his memoir, posed more "harm and danger, than benefit, to society."……

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations