‘Death & Taxes’

Filmmaker Justin Schein admits that “Death & Taxes” might not be the most accurate title for his latest documentary.

Yes, ostensibly, the film is about the estate tax, also known as the death tax, a levy on accumulated wealth people owe the federal government (and some states) after they die. Frankly, if that were all “Death & Taxes” was about, it would still be an interesting, though probably not compelling, film.

But it is about more, as Justin notes in a Zoom interview — and note as well that I’m using first names here, because there is more than one Mr. Schein:

“I think the title doesn’t reveal the complexity or the personal nature of the film,” he said.

By that, Justin means that the film revolves around his dad, Harvey Schein, a successful business executive who seems to have strong opinions about everything and can most politely be described as difficult — though earthier terms might apply as well.

I suggest to Justin that the film really was more about his relationship with his father, a kind of digital therapy session, than taxation.

“No question,” he said. “It was very expensive psychoanalysis. That’s what I do. I make films, and that helps me come to terms with questions I have about the world.

“This film was particularly difficult because those questions were about my relationship with my dad and my relationship with this issue, which has changed over time from when I was an obnoxious teenager to now, when I’m a dad thinking about my children and wanting them to be secure, but also wanting them to live in a world that is equitable.”

Harvey’s obsession about money is perhaps understandable. He grew up largely without it, in a lower-middle-class household, where spending money frivolously was blasphemy. So his desire to leave a financial legacy for his family in a way his own parents couldn’t for him isn’t surprising.

But he often explains the rationale for his beliefs in a most unattractive and un-tikkun-olamish way. Saying “I don’t want the estate I built up to go to people on welfare” is not likely to win much sympathy.

Harvey attended college (NYU) and law school (Harvard) on the GI Bill before he began an extremely successful career mostly in the recording industry.

But he was a tough boss. Mid-career, he was fired from his job as president of SONY America, though he’d more than doubled the company’s sales and increased the bottom line by a factor of seven. His abrasive management style clashed with the company’s culture.

It was a my-way-or-the-highway style he brought home as well. Justin began filming his family “in about 1997, ’98.” Back from time on the West Coast, he saw his parents’ relationship in a new light.

“My dad, who was this powerful guy, had retired, and now all his issues, his anger, his brilliance, were pointed at my mother instead of pointing it at the big corporation.

“I was interested in making a film about their relationship, and it was during the course of filming that my mother decided she didn’t want to live in Florida.”

If the film has a hero, it is wife and mother Joy Schein, who had to bear the brunt of Harvey’s anger. Until she couldn’t anymore. A lifelong dancer, she wanted to continue practicing and learning the art in New York.

But that became impossible because Harvey insisted that they spend enough time in Florida to establish and maintain residency in the no-state-tax Sunshine State and then spend summers in their Connecticut home. Given the choice between no taxes and no wife, Harvey chose no wife. So Joy left.

Obviously, “as a son who wanted peace in my family as opposed to a filmmaker who wanted an exciting movie, I decided to stop filming,” Justin said. “And my brother and I helped them reconcile.

“I put the footage on the shelf until 2017, when the initial [first-term] Trump tax bill was working its way through Congress. There was the real possibility that the estate tax was going to be abandoned, and I wanted to make a film about that.”

Justin believes that good films are character-driven. “I went around and asked people with money about their estates. Nobody would talk to me because talking about your money is one of the last taboos.

“So it occurred to me that the footage of my parents could be the foundation of the film.”

In fact, that is what makes “Death & Taxes” so fascinating. The arguments for and against the so-called death tax are in and of themselves relatively simple and uninteresting.

Justin interviewed several people on both sides of the issue, with the basic arguments boiling down to this:

Pro: Without remediation, we will pass hundreds of trillions of dollars of wealth from one generation to the next, widening the wealth gap even further.

Con: The government is effectively taxing money it has already taxed.

But while this seems logical on the surface, the reasoning is specious. In the real world, the wealthy have ways of avoiding income taxes. Warren Buffett once said that because of tax breaks he receives, his secretary is taxed at a higher rate than he is.

Moreover, the same (or similar) tricks the wealthy use to avoid income tax are used to avoid the estate tax. In 2021, the last year for which figures are available, only slightly more than 2,000 estate taxes were filed.

The tone of the film changes toward the end. Harvey is diagnosed with cancer, and the conversation between the father and son becomes more mellow.

I tell Justin I know he loved his father, but I ask did you like him? “I did like him,” Justin replies. “But he also could be, you know, incredibly” — here Justin briefly pauses searching for the right words — “he had problems.

“He was a lawyer, a negotiator. And that served him very well at work. But he came home and was the same way with his 5-year-old son as he was with the board, and that was difficult at times.”

It’s a tribute to the filmmaker’s honesty that he gives that 5-year-old boy a seat at the table. And it’s a tribute to his compassion that he doesn’t hold a grudge.

“So, yes, I liked him, but he suffered for his issues. As I show in the film, I found this letter that he wrote to me when he was 60, where he talked about his lifelong struggle with being happy.

“His desire was that his kids could go beyond the constraints he faced and be happy. That would make him happy, and that sort of gave me permission to make this film.”

As is my custom, I asked Justin about his family’s Jewish background and got a couple of surprises in return. His great-great-grandfather was Solomon Judah Rapoport (1786-1867), known as Shir, a famous rabbi and scholar.

On a more contemporary level, Justin grew up in a household that was “very Jewish, but not very religious. There was a lot of Yiddish and a lot of kvetching. We went to temple sporadically and celebrated the major holidays.

“Dad was a vocal agnostic, but as he got older, particularly when he moved away from New York to a less Jewish part of Florida, he became more interested in building a Jewish community. He wrote the bylaws for their new temple on Sanibel and attended Friday night services.”

The more things change…

“Death & Taxes” opens in New York today.