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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. This is how we're going to end today. A conversation about inheritance and your calls with respect to your family and with respect to our country. Why? Because there's a new documentary that deals with this. For some families, conversations about money are harder than for others. For filmmaker and cinematographer Justin Schein, those conversations became the basis of his new documentary.

The thing is, he grew up in a wealthy household. His father, Harvey Schein, was the president of Sony, Sony Corporation of America, in the 1970s, and before that, worked at Columbia Records during a pivotal era in the music industry. Later in life, the film says Harvey became increasingly focused on reducing his taxes, especially the estate tax. Justin's new film, called Death and Taxes, explores their relationship and the values that he and his father did not share, alongside a broader look at inherited wealth in America.

The documentary includes interviews with economists and political figures on both sides of the debate: Paul Krugman, Grover Norquist, Derek Hamilton, Matthew Desmond, Frank Luntz, others. It's a personal story, but of course, it opens up bigger questions about how we tax inherited wealth and how that ties into the larger conversation about inequality in this country. Death and Taxes opens today in Manhattan at the IFC Center. Justin Schein, welcome to WNYC.

Justin Schein: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Your wife, Eden, says early on in the film, something like, "Nobody wants to watch a poor little rich boy story." Why did you want to tell this story? What do you hope people will take from it?

Justin Schein: Well, it was a hard story to tell. I had been fighting with my dad about politics and economics for years. As the film shows it, really, his growing obsession with the estate tax had an impact on our family. He insisted that he moved to Florida. My mom didn't want to do that. I didn't really decide to make this movie until around 2017 when I saw the real possibility that the estate tax, which was something that had been on my mind for years, might go away, and I wanted to explore that.

I went around asking people their opinions, and nobody wanted to talk about their estates, particularly people who had wealth. It became clear this was really a taboo subject. I decided to use this personal footage as the foundation for this kind of exploration.

Brian Lehrer: You grew up with your father's wealth. How did you think about money as a kid and a young adult? Did that start to change because he became so focused on the estate tax after he retired?

Justin Schein: Well, my dad grew up in the Depression, and he always had inside of him this little boy who was struggling to succeed so that he wouldn't have to deal with that deprivation. This cost-cutting, this penny-pinching that he grew up with, he took to the boardroom, and it was very successful and made him a very successful CEO. He also brought that home. There were lots of rules about saving money and not wasting money. A lot of them were perfectly reasonable and smart. There are things I teach my kids. His style was abrasive.

I grew up feeling that way. It wasn't until I had my own kids that I began to really, A, appreciate his desire to pass on security. There's this kind of emotional side to it that you can't really understand until you have kids. I also began to be worried about our society and the impact that this wealth inequity was having.

Brian Lehrer: Let's play a clip. Here's your father asking why he should pay a state tax when he was already paying close to $500,000 a year in income tax.

Harvey Schein: You know what my income tax was this 1999?

Justin Schein: No.

Harvey Schein: $490,000 I paid in income tax. I'm paying my share. I'm not shirking. I'm not arguing that I pay-- If I earn money, I pay my income tax. When I die, it doesn't mean that they have a right to take half my money. Why should they be my partner?

Justin Schein: How do you feel about that $400,000?

Harvey Schein: If I worked and earned money and paid taxes on it, why do I have to pay taxes on it again when I die? Can you answer that?

Brian Lehrer: Can you answer that, Justin? Tell us why you disagree with that.

Justin Schein: It's a very common argument against the estate tax that it's a double taxation. He did work hard, and he paid his taxes, and he believed in paying his income taxes. The reality, though, now that you don't hear about is just very few people are subjected to the estate tax. Right now, it's up to $30 million for a couple. You don't pay a cent on your estate until that. There are so many loopholes. It's so easy to avoid paying the estate tax.

Trump's advisor, Cohn, said only morons pay the estate tax. It's true. There are so many ways, but that's money that we need as a society. This bill that just passed very clearly shows that we cut a trillion dollars worth of the estate tax, and we are paying for that with a trillion dollars worth of cuts to Medicaid and to food stamps. This is a choice, and I think that there needs to be an open discussion because taxes really kind of reflect what our priorities are.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, does this sound like any conversation you've ever had in your family? My guest is Justin Schein, whose new film, which focuses on the disagreement between him and his father about estate taxes, is called Death and Taxes. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text, or with a question. By the way, you may not know Justin Schein's name, but you probably know some of his other films. No Impact Man, Left on Purpose. Crip Cramp was him, his One Nation Under Dog, Torn from the Flag. These are all yours, right?

Justin Schein: Some of them I was a cinematographer on, but I've worked on a lot of films, and many of them are about other people. There's a tradition where you tell stories about people in need. I decided that this was an important time to maybe talk about my own privilege.

Brian Lehrer: Let's play another clip. This is a moment that you and your brother, remember. After your father had a stroke, he kept repeating the phrase, "Take advantage of the advantage." Listen.

Justin Schein: As he was lying there, he kept saying over and over again, "Take advantage of the advantage."

Mark Schein: Take advantage of the advantage. Take advantage of the advantage.

Justin Schein: None of us really understood exactly what that meant. It wasn't anything that he'd ever said before.

Mark Schein: It was pure Harvey in his unfiltered state. What rose to the top of Dad's brain was a riddle that was both about business and about life.

Brian Lehrer: Talk more about that. Do you think that was planted in his brain to come out near the end of his life after he had a stroke, sort of involuntarily? Because he grew up poor?

Justin Schein: I think so. I think that he was told by his mom when he was very young that he wasn't a planned child. He was the youngest of four, and he had to sleep in the same bed with his siblings. He was scrappy, and he was always trying to succeed, and he really did. I also think that he really wanted us to appreciate what we had. I don't think it was just about business or taking advantage of other people. He wasn't that kind of guy. It was about taking what you have and passing it on.

He really was also struggling with his own mortality, and he wanted to be remembered. I think that passing on his estate and passing on security to his grandchildren was part of that. Ironically, this movie is going to be part of that, too.

Brian Lehrer: You ready to engage with somebody who I think agrees with your father?

Justin Schein: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: Craig in Morganville, you're on WNYC. Hello. Oh, I didn't click on his line. That's what I got to do, like I've done a zillion times before. Here we go. Craig, we have you now. Hi there.

Craig: I think it's ridiculous that the government deserves any money from somebody who's built a successful business legally and the right way and wants to pass it on. Examples are farmers. Farms have been in generations, but because the way the farm consortium works, they're not going to be able to afford the death taxes. They have to sell the farm. How about the bodega owners when they can't pass it on? It's tied up in their business and the customers and what they do, and they can't. To sell that bodega will not cover the cost of those death taxes.

I think it is a silly tax. If somebody has $100 million, they will pay their taxes. There are loopholes. So what? They want to pass that money on to the family. If it's only $30 million, so what? It's a mere drop in the bucket. Let people have their family fortune, and they do with it what they want. The government does not deserve a bit of it, only the taxes when they were alive. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Craig. Anything you want to say to that, Justin?

Justin Schein: Sure, sure.

Brian Lehrer: One of the things you might respond to is he's sort of putting it back on you, right? Like, if you're going to get a big inheritance from your father or if other people are from your parents, then you can give it away. You can give it to good causes.

Justin Schein: Sure, sure. I hear that a lot. I have a few things to say about that. First thing is my dad really took advantage of the GI Bill. He was in the Navy in World War II. Like millions and millions of other Americans, he got his college and law school paid for. Millions of Americans got low-interest loans, and that really created a thriving middle class. That is kind of the foundation of America's wealth right now. That was paid for with taxes under Eisenhower, who was a Republican. The highest taxes were 90%. It just would be unconscionable now.

The other thing is, I think that if we didn't have this problem right now, then I would agree. People should be able to hold onto their money. If the meritocracy that is the foundation of this American dream still existed, that would be great. America has moved to 27th in social mobility for developed nations. I don't think it's a partisan issue. I think that most Americans want America to be a place where you can work hard and succeed and do better for your family. The cost of education, the cost of health care, the cost of housing is keeping hard-working people down.

I'm not suggesting that this be a size of a tax that will take away everybody's money that has money. No. The reality is that most of the redistribution of wealth through taxes is rich people getting tax breaks. It's far more than what poor people get from handouts. Lastly, this whole discussion about farms is really a conservative talking point. I challenge you to find me one farm that has been lost because of the estate tax. There are so many rules around farms that make them safe from the estate tax so that you can pay your taxes. That's really not an honest argument.

Brian Lehrer: Ishmael in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ishmael.

Ishmael: Hi, Brian. I wanted to call and talk about my mother's perspective on the inheritance tax. We're a Black family, and we only really came into property in the last few generations in the 1960s. Her point is that the inheritance tax maybe shouldn't apply in the same way to Black families, given that we weren't given similar opportunities until fairly recently. Also that I think oftentimes, the inheritance tax disadvantages Black families in different ways. If their properties are taxed, it can often lead to adult children just losing the property. I'm not sure I agree with her perspective on it, but it's one that I always have to take seriously.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, very interesting, considering really the plunder in American history of what would have been Black families' wealth over time. Do you take that up in the documentary at all, Justin, or anything like that?

Justin Schein: I do. In fact, that was a real eye-opening experience for me to learn about the racial wealth gap and how Black families have about a dime for every dollar that white families have in family wealth. That tracks back to systemic racism that Black families were not afforded the low-interest loans, in many cases, from the GI Bill. Those loans kind of created a valuable asset that grew. There's many examples of that.

I think that there are very smart people working on this that have ideas that will try to generate wealth for young Black people. Derek Hamilton, who's in our film, has created this concept of baby bonds, where young people who are born today get an endowment from the government. It's not based on race, but it's based on family wealth. If you're very poor, you get X amount of money invested for you that you receive when you're 18 or 21. The racial wealth gap is an important kind of consequence of this history.

Brian Lehrer: Let me play one more clip from the documentary. You ask sociologist Matthew Desmond whether wealth and inheritance is all or nothing, that if you give away too much, your own kids lose out. Let's listen.

Justin Schein: Is it an all-or-nothing situation?

Matthew Desmond: I don't feel like that. I'm a dad, too. I've got kids, too. I think I have a responsibility to those kids, including to make sure their lives are economically secure. We worry. We worry about our future. We worry about our kids. I think that worry often makes us try to hold on to everything that we have and defend that. I don't think that means having to hoard as much affluence as I can. I don't think it means making sure they're okay, even if that costs other kids opportunities.

Brian Lehrer: Is it all or nothing? How do you receive what Matthew Desmond said there?

Justin Schein: Yes, I really love that he said that. We're such a rich country, and there's plenty to go around. I think that there's a lot of room for compromise in this. I don't give answers or suggestions necessarily in the film. My real hope in the film is that we have a new discussion and a change in attitude about this, because really, this is about how we see our neighbors and see our country.

Trump, when he was debating Hillary Clinton in 2016, she accused him of not paying any taxes. He said, "Well, that makes me smart." That is really the core of the problem, is that some people feel like it's every man for himself. I feel like that's not the way to the success in the country that we all want.

Brian Lehrer: Filmmaker and cinematographer Justin Schein. His new documentary, Death and Taxes, opens today in Manhattan at the IFC Center. Thanks a lot and congratulations on the film.

Justin Schein: Thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Vito Emanuel and Adelina Romero are interns. Stay tuned for Alison.

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