Re-reading "Perfectly Legal" by David Cay Johnston

[underpants]

http://www.amazon.com/Perfectly-Legal-Campaign-Benefit-Everybody/dp/1591840198

http://www.perfectlylegalthebook.com/

From the inside cover

*Roberto Goizueta, CEO of Coca-Cola, built a billion-dollar fortune without paying a dime in taxes on it.

*Tom and Cindy Toth, a corporate trainer and stay-at-home mom, live on $90,000 a year. But the alternative minimum tax will take back much of the tax cuts Congress voted them in 2001 and 2003. By 2010, 35.6 million households will pay this “stealth tax.”

*Ingersoll-Rand pays $26,000 a year to maintain a Bermuda post office box as its legal headquarters. That little trick lets them escape $40 million in corporate taxes each year.

*The IRS unjustly came after Maritza Reyes, a cleaning woman in East Los Angeles who earns $7,000 per year, but ignored the fact that billionaire art dealer Alec Wildenstein and his wife Jocelyn never filed a tax return in three decades

The rapidly widening gulf between the super-rich and everyone else is an American tragedy. Pundits have raged about it, but until now, no one has explained exactly how it happened, why it’s not a normal part of capitalism, or how much damage it’s really causing—not just to the poor, but to 99 percent of all Americans.

Whether your family makes $30,000 or $300,000 a year, you are being robbed because the IRS and other institutions have been systematically corrupted—under both Republican and Democratic administrations—to serve the needs of people who make millions. Your future is being undermined and chances are you will never come out ahead.

If you’re the kind of person who works hard and plays by the rules, prepare to be outraged. Perfectly Legal will show you why the American Dream is turning into a lie. This explosive book, by an award-winning investigative reporter, reveals exactly how the tax code and many other laws have been twisted over the past three decades to subsidize the incomes and extravagant lifestyles of the richest and most powerful fraction of 1 percent of our country.

For nine years, David Cay Johnston has been exposing this covert campaign, piece by piece, on the front page of The New York Times. His scoops about outrageous tax scams have ruffled the feathers of powerful business leaders, politicians, and members of the political donor class. He routinely exposes the CEOs who fly free corporate jets to Myrtle Beach for a day of golf and stick you with the bill; the business owners who build overseas factories to earn tax-free dollars; the former IRS employees who now teach multimillionaires how to hide their assets from the government.

Now Johnston offers a raft of compelling new stories, about real people across all areas of society. In Perfectly Legal, you’ll meet sleazy accountants and brazen tax cheats, clueless congressmen and crafty lobbyists. You’ll meet frustrated IRS agents who have been handcuffed from pursuing the most blatant lawbreakers. And you’ll meet ordinary Americans who are struggling to make a decent living with the system stacked against them, in ways they don’t even realize.

Compared to thirty years ago, every American now lives in a society much less equal and much more fraught with financial risk. Perfectly Legal lays out the details in plain English, and shows how we can stop these trends before it's too late.

David Cay Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his investigative reporting in The New York Times and has been a Pulitzer finalist three other times since 2000. He lives in Rochester, New York, and New York City.

[diane in sf]

1. this is a great book--you can even send it to "no-tax" middle class Repuglicans

telling them that you agree with them that taxes are too high--on the wrong people.