Amazon.com Review
This book is a group project; Charles Lewis and Bill Allison are the principle authors, but they have relied on an "investigative team" that includes 19 other individuals affiliated with the Center for Public Integrity, a left-of-center research organization in Washington, D.C. What they've assembled in
The Cheating of America is a muckraking survey of how the rich and powerful shirk their responsibilities: "We investigate the people and companies who have benefited most from our society and our way of life and then chosen to thumb their noses at the rest of us, by paying little or no taxes." The book is full of facts and figures, many sure to outrage. The authors identify, for instance, some 45,000 tax returns filed by people earning more than $100,000 and paying less than 7 percent of their income to the federal government--compared to millions of workers who earn much less and proportionally pay much more. (One recent IRS report counted 2,680 filers with incomes of $200,000 or more claiming they owed no taxes at all, up from just 85 in 1977.)
What makes the book succeed, however, is not its careful number crunching, but all the little stories that detail "the phenomenon of tax avoidance (that's legal), tax evasion (that's illegal), and tax 'avoision' (catch us if you can)." There are the wealthy film producers who use offshore trusts and tax shelters to hide their income, the millionaire tax evaders who renounce their U.S. citizenship in order to escape making tax payments, and the accountants who help it all happen. At times, the book feels like a long Reader's Digest article, all told in the service of an outrageous conclusion: "Many of the nation's wealthiest individuals and its largest corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes today." The Cheating of America will appeal to readers who appreciated the Center for Public Integrity's previous efforts, as well as admirers of Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. --John J. Miller
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Probing everything from smart legal maneuvers to outright tax fraud by the wealthy, this fascinating, highly readable survey explores the tax code's haphazard evolution since 1913, and how it has favored rich individuals and large corporations over average taxpayers. Citing IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti, who testified in 1998 that tax evasion costs the federal government $195 billion annually, Lewis and Allison et al. (The Buying of the President) note that almost 1,000 families earning more than $200,000 paid no income tax in 1995 and that corporate income taxes, which made up 28% of federal tax revenue in 1956, now are only 10%. Familiar ploys like hiding money in offshore trusts, tax shelters and nonprofit fronts figure in these sensational tales, but people like movie producer Saul Zaentzwho stashed profits from One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest offshore and later settled the IRS claim for $26 million with a payment of $1.5 millionloom larger. Despite stiff competition, Joseph and Pamella Ross inspire the most outrage for fleeing in 1986 from a grand jury investigation of Joseph Ross's tax evasion on the government contracts that made his fortune. The couple's elaborate travels and disguises bear astonishing witness to how far some people will go to avoid paying the taxman. As these tales of privilege and chutzpah set readers' blood to boil, the authors judiciously urge their audience to demand fair tax treatment from lawmakers. What the rich don't pay, the rest of us do, they remind us. Little guys everywhere will read this book with righteous indignation.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
