Ray Madoff

Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School, is on a mission to inform average income-earning Americans about how the tax code favors the wealthy—including philanthropists. Amid her many critiques of the system, outlined in her 2025 book, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, Madoff skewers charitable giving rules that provide substantial benefits for wealthy donors, and virtually none for the other taxpayers. 

Madoff, who co-founded think-tank the Boston College Law School Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good, is also one of the foremost critics of donor-advised funds. These increasingly popular giving platforms offer immediate tax benefits for donors without a required timeline for putting funds to use, meaning that contributions may not get to charities until long after donors have received the tax benefits. "We need to ensure that when somebody gets charitable tax benefits, there is some time period in which the money has to actually get to be available for charity," Madoff says. “It’s a no brainer.”