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Hardcover Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich-And Cheat Everybody Else Book

ISBN: 1591840198

ISBN13: 9781591840190

Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich-And Cheat Everybody Else

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Book Overview

Now updated with a new prologue Since the mid-1970s, there has been a dramatic shift in America's socioeconomic system, one that has gone virtually unnoticed by the general public. Tax policies and their enforcement have become a disaster, and thanks to discreet lobbying by a segment of the top 1 percent, Washington is reluctant or unable to fix them. The corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the gift tax have been largely ignored by the media. But the cumulative results are remarkable: today someone who earns a yearly salary of $60,000 pays a larger percentage of his income in taxes than the four hundred richest Americans.Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston exposes exactly how the middle class is being squeezed to create a widening wealth gap that threatens the stability of the country. By relating the compelling tales of real people across all areas of society, he reveals the truth behind: - "Middle class" tax cuts and exactly whom they benefit. - How workers are being cheated out of their retirement plans while disgraced CEOs walk away with millions. - How some corporations avoid paying any federal income tax. - How a law meant to prevent cheating by the top 2 percent of Americans no longer affects most of them, but has morphed into a stealth tax on single mothers making just $28,000. - Why the working poor are seven times more likely to be audited by the IRS than everyone else. - How the IRS became so weak that even when it was handed complete banking records detailing massive cheating by 1,600 people, it prosecuted only 4 percent of them.Johnston has been breaking pieces of this story on the front page of The New York Times for seven years. With Perfectly Legal, he puts the whole shocking narrative together in a way that will stir up media attention and make readers angry about the state of our country. This description may be from another edition of this product.

Customer Reviews

7 customer ratings | 5 reviews

Rated 5 stars
The most important book you will read this year!

If you are wondering whether you should read this book, I strongly say YES. I just finished reading Perfectly Legal, I have a Ph.D. in economics and business administration and was not sure that I would learn that much. Boy, was I wrong!What an outstanding book! He writes so cleanly and clearly, it is no surprise he has a Pulitzer for stories he has written for the New York Times. The research and logic is world class and...

5Report

Rated 5 stars
Must Read

I am a traditional conservative who has been bothered by tough coverage of the tax code in WSJ for years, but I am deeply troubled by Johnson's book. I have spoken with three tax attorneys who read it and found it accurate. What upsets me most is that THEY are not outraged. It does not do justice to this remarkable popularizationof an extremely complex subject to say merely that we always knew that the tax system was unfair...

3Report

Rated 5 stars
SHOCKING TAX THRILLER

This is one of the most amazing books about taxes I have ever read. Mr. Johnston proves, in convincing detail, how the US tax system has been hijacked by the super-rich. He does this in a wonderful prose and without ever resorting to exaggerations, just stating the embarrassing facts. If you ever wondered how so many executives can fly around to private vacations in corporate jets, this book will tell you why - the taxes they...

3Report

Rated 5 stars
Perfectly Legal

Written by David Cay Johnston I do not attack the Bush family in my book. In my book I explicitly state that it is perfectly proper for rich families to seek to tilt the tax system in their favor, that the problem is that the middle class has largely withdrawn from politics and the members of Congress -- many of whom, I have interviewed -- have their minds focused on the concerns of their donors, who are a narrow and rich...

3Report

Rated 5 stars
Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston

Perfectly Legal by NYTimes Pulitzer Prize writer, David Cay Johnston, is the one book that all of us struggling to make ends meet cannot live without. In clear, indignant prose, Johnston writes about the political manipulations of our tax system so the superrich get richer and the poor get children--or jobs as checkers at Wal-Mart. Johnston shows how our tax system cheats most Americans out of their ability to save--or spend--while...

3Report

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