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Bill Harris
Bill Harris PYPL
Cofounder, PayPal
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Your Savings Account Could Be Costing Thousands a Year

📅 Sep 29, 2026 Evergreen AI 14 MIN 16 VIEWS 14 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
The interest rate on your savings account isn't the full story. There's a real tax cost hiding behind it, and the amount depends on your income, your state, and your situation. The accounts many people assume are the safe, smart choice don't hold up once taxes actually enter the picture, and the ranking shifts again the moment your income, your state, or your life stage changes. If you're tired of guessing where your cash should sit, join Bill Harris in the first episode of Money Lab. Former CEO of PayPal and Intuit, founder of Personal Capital, he's spent three decades building the financial...

What Bill Harris said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Bill Harris, cofounder of PayPal and former CEO of Intuit, argues the U.S. tax code is absurdly complex, with 37 million words of rules, and will never be significantly simplified. He recounts that as CEO of Intuit, he jokingly warned investors against believing Congress would simplify taxes. Harris distinguishes tax preparation (backward-looking) from tax planning (forward-looking), noting his two tax planning software packages sold nearly zero copies because planning is a 'should-do,' not a 'must-do.' He highlights a case study, Sally McGee (an AI replica), a New York City corporate attorney earning $260,000, facing a 46.5% marginal tax rate on interest income. Harris shows that high-yield savings accounts are often suboptimal after taxes, and that optimal choices depend on individual circumstances, such as moving to Florida. He advocates for free AI-powered tools at evergreen.ai to democratize tax planning. Harris also criticizes the unfairness of the tax system, noting the ultra-wealthy pay lower effective rates due to capital gains preferences and deferral, citing a UC Berkeley study.

Key takeaways

  1. The U.S. tax code is 37 million words and will never be significantly simplified, despite advocacy.
  2. Tax planning is a 'should-do' that almost no one does, as Harris's two software packages sold approximately zero copies.
  3. Sally McGee, a New York City earner at $260,000, faces a 46.5% marginal tax rate on interest income, making high-yield savings less attractive than munis.
  4. Even for the same person, the best place to stash cash changes with life changes, like moving to Florida and retiring, where her tax rate drops to 12%.
  5. The 400 wealthiest Americans pay a smaller percentage of their true income in taxes than the average American, per a UC Berkeley study.

Numbers and commitments

FigureWhat it refers toTypeAt
37 million words Length of U.S. tax code rules and regulations metric 0:00
400,000 words Length of the one big beautiful bill passed last summer metric 1:04
$260,000 Sally McGee's taxable ordinary income metric 4:49
46.5% Sally's marginal tax rate on interest income metric 5:13
3.9% Sally's high-yield savings interest rate metric 6:21
$3,900 Annual interest earned on $100,000 at 3.9% metric 6:21
12% Sally's total tax rate after moving to Florida and retiring metric 8:43
40% Share of U.S. taxpayers paying little or no income tax metric 10:22
3.4% True tax rate of the 25 richest Americans on wealth growth 2014-2018 metric 10:22
23 billion dollars Investor assets at Personal Capital at its peak metric 13:35

Chapters

  1. 0:00Tax code complexity and the postcard question
  2. 2:27How AI can democratize tax planning
  3. 4:49Sally McGee's case study
  4. 6:21Comparing after-tax returns on cash
  5. 8:28Life changes alter the optimal choice
  6. 10:22Fairness of the tax system
  7. 12:29Personal tax journey and free tools
Bill Harris 0:00 ↗
What's the answer? The entire adult population of Los Angeles working full-time for an entire year. Okay, what's the question? And you'll die. How much manpower would it take to prepare all the taxes in the United States through April 15th in a single tax year? The United States income tax is an unholy mess. Among tax systems, it's the most complex beast in the developed world. 37 million words of rules and regulations. I ran TurboTax for 10 years and I've read less than 1% of those words. But why? How did our tax system run so far out of control? Oh, um sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Bill Harris and this is the Money Lab. We tackle questions that impact your money. Then we show you how to improve things and give you free online tools that help you figure it out. So now, back to our question. How did the tax code get so complex? Let me tell you a story.
Sometime ago, I was CEO of Intuit, which makes TurboTax. I was taking the company public, so running around the country talking to groups of investors. At about the same time, there was a presidential election going on. One of the candidates was Steve Forbes of the Forbes magazine dynasty. His pitch was this: repeal the entire tax code and build something simple enough you could file your taxes on a postcard. So, in every investor group I spoke to, some chucklehead would raise their hand and ask the postcard question. Won't that put you out of business? I'd say, 'If you actually believe that the Congress of these United States is going to significantly simplify the tax code in your lifetime, do not invest.' Everyone laughed. Everyone invested. By coincidence, 20 years later it was Forbes magazine that counted the 37 million words. And since that time, the absurd complexity of our tax regime has only gotten worse, culminating in the one big beautiful bill that President Trump jammed through last summer. That was another 400,000 words alone. I'm not a fan. I've spent a good part of my career advocating for a simpler tax system, but the truth is, it will not happen. And we need to live with what we've got.
Tax code should be comprehensible to any taxpayer, but it's not. Not without help. Not without advisers and software, and more recently, specialized AI systems specifically trained to answer financial questions. When I ran TurboTax, we had over 200 tax analysts and engineers working to build a single piece of software. Today, with AI, we can build the same capabilities and go well beyond it with a fraction of that team. That's not just a cost story. It means this kind of planning that used to be reserved for people who could afford an army of advisers can now be available to everyone for free.
Now, here's something most people don't realize. Tax preparation and tax planning are two completely different things. Preparation is backwards looking. It's an accounting exercise that tells you what you owed last year. But by the time you're filing on April 15th, the decisions that could have saved you money have already been made. I learned this the hard way. Over the years, I built two different tax planning software packages. Each one was genuinely good software. And each one sold approximately zero copies. And that's when I learned the difference between must-dos and should-dos. You must pay your taxes. You should plan your taxes. But almost no one does. I've started a new company to do exactly that, evergreen.ai. After years in financial technology, this is my passion project. So, I make our AI tools available at no cost to viewers and listeners of The Money Lab. Check them out at evergreen.ai.
Each person's finances are utterly unique. So, I can't cover each of your specific situations on the podcast. So, I'll show you an example, Sally McGee. But first, here's a confession. Sally is not real. She's an AI replica that I constructed to represent real clients I've served over the years. Why use a replica? Because privacy and security is the most basic promise I make to the people I work with. I will not and cannot share any individual's data without their consent. Let's ask Sally to tell you about herself.
Sally McGee 4:49 ↗
Hello there. Bill asked me to describe my situation. I'm 56 and live in New York City. I'm divorced and the kids are off building their own lives. I work as a corporate attorney in a large tech company and between salary, RSUs, and investment income, I make about $260,000 of taxable ordinary income each year. I don't have to tell you, my taxes are brutal.

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APA

Harris, B. (2026, September 29). Your Savings Account Could Be Costing Thousands a Year [Interview transcript]. Evergreen AI. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2949940/

MLA

Bill Harris. "Your Savings Account Could Be Costing Thousands a Year." Evergreen AI, 29 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2949940/.

BibTeX 
@misc{harris2026_2949940,
  author       = {Bill Harris},
  title        = {Your Savings Account Could Be Costing Thousands a Year},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Evergreen AI. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {sep},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2949940/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}