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Title: Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else by David Cay Johnston ISBN: 1-59184-019-8 Publisher: Portfolio Pub. Date: 25 December, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.42 (78 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "Perfectly Legal" Should Be Read By Every American Family
Comment: This is one book you will definitely want to read. If you thought that you understood America's tax system and how it affects you, you will probably be shocked to discover just how wrong you have been! David Cay Johnston is an investigative reporter who is a double Pulitzer Prize winner. He spent many years working on the material for this book. Once you begin to read this, you will find it difficult to put down. It will open your eyes like nothing you have ever read about taxes, and who is carrying the burden, and who will find themselves buried under a severe burden within only a decade.
Johnston is an excellent writer and the information just flows off the page. This is easy reading and it is some of the most informative material you will ever come across.
You cannot afford to be ignorant about our tax system and how it is affecting you. I'm sure you have heard the political arguments where Democrats say, "the Republicans are robbing the poor to give to the rich" and the Republican arguments that "the rich are carrying all the tax burden and need relief." Which is really true, and how do you know it? Read this book and you will find out. It will become crystal clear.
Are you aware that there are really TWO Income Tax systems? One is the regular Income Tax which is what you hear everyone talk about when they talk about giving exemptions and giving tax cuts.
But you never hear them talk about the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). It takes precedence over the regular Income Tax and is the final determinate of the taxes you pay. It was originally put in place to prevent the richest 155 families in the US from getting away with paying zero taxes. It has since turned into just the opposite. What it now does is to redirect the tax burden from the top wealthiest families to the middle class families. The wealthiest still pay zero taxes by using tax deferment methods and tax shelters. They can delay tax payments up to 30 years and pay with inflated money that is worth less than half the original tax burden. And the major tax burden has shifted to families making from $70K to $500K. If you make over $500K, you tax burden drops DRAMATICALLY, but if you are in the middle class, you tax burden increases with each passing year. By the year 2010, the Alternative Minimum Tax will take in more of your tax dollars than the actual Income Tax structure.
I wish I could tell you more here, but it would be senseless to try to repeat all the information that this book provides. It is a wealth of information.
Let me mention one other thing: Social Security. You remember that back in 1986 there was a big "Social Security scare?" It was being said that Social Security was going broke? You were lied to. Social Security had a minor 5% shortfall, and only need
a minor adjustment to solve the problem. However, Reagan's "tax cut" was causing severe deficits. Both the AMT, and Social Security were adjusted to make up for the decline in Income Taxes. The tax cut was given with one hand, and taken back with the other. What shifted was WHO the tax burden fell on.
Social Security went from a pay-as-you-go system, to a pay-in-advance system. The additional excess income from Social Security taxes are siphoned off to pay for the tax cuts. From 1984 to 2002, the government siphoned off $1.7 TRILLION from the Social Security System to pay for government operational cost that could not be paid for with the lower Income Taxes. Many families are now paying more in Social Security taxes than they are in Income Taxes. This is a "hidden tax." Additionally, not only does that tax come directly out of your paycheck, you employer pays the other half, which is twice the amount shown on your pay stub, but which the company considers a part of your salary benefits. This extra Social Security tax is going to supplement the tax breaks to the wealthiest families in America.
That, currently, is $1.7 TRILLION that will never be paid back to the Social Security System. Additionally, this technique actually hides the true amount of the country's deficit, which is much larger than what is officially published.
If you read any book this year, make it this book! For the first time in your life, you will be stone-cold aware of what is really happening with the tax system.
Once you read the book, you will be telling everyone you know to read it. It's that good!
Rating: 5
Summary: NON-PARTISAN exposé on how our gov't is screwing us
Comment: Despite repeated statements to the contrary, THE AUTHOR, DAVID CAY JOHNSTON IS IN FACT A REGISTERED REPUBLICAN.
I don't know where people get the idea the author is a liberal. Maybe because his book criticizes George W.'s tax policies. They seem to overlook the fact that he just as often criticizes Bill Clinton's policies. He goes on to show that regardless of party affiliation, for several decades our elected officials in the whitehouse and congress have been continuosly and consistently shifting more and more of the cost of running this country from those who are most able to pay to those who are struggling to get by.
I'm about half way through the book, and I'm already thinking I need to buy a copy and give it to everyone I know. I think we should demand our senators and congress people all read this book and then tell us what they are going to do to guarantee the super rich take up their fair share of the tax burden and lighten it for those at the bottom. And if they don't enact it within a year, we'll vote them out office. And we won't accept a short term pacifier that will later transform into an even greater burden. We need a permanent solution.
This book explains in terms most people can understand the various ways in which our tax system cheats the average American. Even if the topic of taxes and finances typically makes your brain cloud over, you'll still be understand this book. The use of several examples to explain a given point help you grasp the concepts. I finally got impatient and jumped to the chapter whose title seemed to suggest might it contain the author's suggested solution "Is Reform Possible?". He points out problems with some recently suggested fixes, but doesn't suggest one himself. I think part of the problem is that while most people, after reading this book, will agree our current system is unfair, it's hard to agree on what a fair system would look like.
Every American citizen who pays taxes needs to read this book.
Rating: 4
Summary: perfectly readable
Comment: Mr. Johnston has written a very easy-to-understand and factual book that mainly documents specific historical events rather than many possible events. This slim book will probably confirm the reader's hunch that all is not well in terms of taxation in the United States. He gives examples of how the elite have managed to shift the load of paying for government onto an over-taxed middle class, and how the middle class shoots itself in the foot at election time by buying into slogans and wishful thinking. This book is not more than a good start for anyone wanting to get into the issues, and I therefore give it four stars; had the book been more extensive, it might deserve five stars, in my opinion.
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