Perfectly Legal

The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else

Portfolio, 2003

15 min read

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The U.S. tax structure benefits the wealthiest and harms everyone else. Want proof? Read here. Want to fix it? Get to work.

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The media and middle-class voters blandly accept tax cuts for the wealthy because they believe the rich pay more than their share. Not true, journalist David Cay Johnston convincingly argues. With thorough research and startling examples, he makes a persuasive case that the rich enjoy a free tax ride, while the middle class’s tax burden keeps growing. He offers a hair-raising tour of posh jets, corporate compensation committees and IRS offices to show how the deck is stacked. Though his stridency can be wearing and the text dates back to 2003, Johnston’s trenchant book still will intrigue anyone with an interest in creating a fairer US tax system or in living with the one they’ve got.

Summary

The US tax system favors the wealthy over the working poor and the middle class.

During the past two decades, presidents and members of Congress consistently have cut the taxes of the United States’ wealthiest taxpayers. They acted based on a simple premise: that the rich pay more than their fair allocation of the nation’s bills. In fact, a closer look at the US’s complex tax structure undermines that premise and reveals huge loopholes for the richest Americans, those who can afford high-priced tax attorneys to set up elaborate tax dodges. These tax avoidance schemes sometimes are legal, but even when they’re not, the Internal Revenue Service lacks the political support and the personnel to pursue wealthy scofflaws.

The IRS was never able to go after rich tax cheaters as aggressively as it should have. Ever since a series of late 1990s congressional hearings portrayed the agency as vindictive and ravenous, it has been handcuffed, even though ideology, more than reality, motivated the portrayal. As a result the rich get richer, while the middle class and the poor share a bigger part of the cost of roads, schools, armies and the other trappings of civilized...

About the Author

New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his investigative reporting. He also has been a Pulitzer finalist three additional times since 2000 and this book won the Investigative Reporters and Editors award for best book of 2003.

David Cay Johnston

Perfectly Legal

The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else

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Summary

The US tax system favors the wealthy over the working poor and the middle class.

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