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The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions 1st Edition
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In this book, inequality expert Chuck Collins, who himself inherited a fortune, interviews the leading players and gives a unique insider account of how this industry is doing everything it can to create and entrench hereditary dynasties of wealth and power. He exposes the inner workings of these “agents of inequality”, showing how they deploy anonymous shell companies, family offices, offshore accounts, opaque trusts, and sham transactions to ensure the world’s richest pay next to no tax. He ends by outlining a robust set of policies that democratic nations can implement to shut down the Wealth Defence Industry for good.
This shocking exposé of the insidious machinery of inequality is essential reading for anyone wanting the inside story of our age of plutocratic plunder and stashed cash.
Also available as an audiobook.
- ISBN-10150954349X
- ISBN-13978-1509543496
- Edition1st
- PublisherPolity
- Publication dateApril 12, 2021
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5.4 x 0.7 x 9 inches
- Print length240 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“It is no great surprise anymore that we are facing the greatest crisis in income and wealth inequality that we have seen since the 1920s. What is shocking is the sprawling system of corruption that the ultra-rich have designed in order to hoard their unimaginable wealth at the expense of everyone else. Chuck's book reveals not only the inner workings of this elaborate scheme to hide more than $20 trillion in wealth, it offers us a blueprint for reversing this obscene inequality so we can take back our democracy and ensure that our government works for everybody―not just the billionaire class and wealthy campaign contributors.”
Senator Bernie Sanders
“This book, a primer to the secrets of the money river, is an essential reformers’ handbook for navigating these dangerous times now facing us – and future generations.”
Nicholas Shaxson, author, The Finance Curse and Treasure Islands
"Skillfully blends personal narrative with social scientific research to create unique insights into a world of privilege that is ordinarily out of sight and out of mind for the rest of us."
Brooke Harrington, Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College. Author, Capital without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent
“The Wealth Hoarders reveals that a whole parallel world exists in which the rich and powerful enjoy the freedom to avoid not just taxes but all kinds of laws they find inconvenient. Accepting the existence this parallel world means putting democracy at risk.”
Frederik Obermaier, author of The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money
“This vital and expertly written book reveals the epic scale of theft occurring legally and in plain sight. Theft that destroys public services, removes access to housing and for which the poorest pay the highest price. The authors reveal how the fountain of wealth gushes ever upwards, we are all paying the price, some of us with our lives, as the wealth defence industry siphons off trillions. Chuck Collins is tireless in his determination to uncover the vicissitudes of the extremely wealthy. If you aren't already angry about inequality, then read this book. If you aren't angry enough to take action by the end of it, then you either work in the WDI or you are one of the 0.1 per cent.”
Dr. Wanda Wyporska, Executive Director, The Equality Trust, UK
“Chuck Collins shines a light on the powerful and pervasive “Wealth Defense Industry,” showcasing what it is and how it is entrenched in the ‘ecosystems’ that perpetuate the growing and harmful inequality of our time, and that the COVID19 pandemic has further unveiled. Collins brings his exceptional research, insights and experience to this informative piece that not only underscores the urgency for real systemic reform to reverse what can be an avoidable race-to-the-bottom, but helps unpack key leverage points for real change.”
Abby Maxman, President and CEO Oxfam America
“Chuck Collins reveals how the superrich are different than the rest of us. While government takes out taxes before we get paid, the wealthiest avoid taxes with trusts, evade taxes with help from tax haven governments and escape the IRS because Congress hobbles tax law enforcement. Collins, who rejected the privilege of his birth, explains in plain English how wealth hoarding works and shows how we can stop this costly corruption.”
David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch
“Once again, Chuck Collins proves that building a better world is well within our reach. There is more than enough money to fund the societal transformation needed for equity, well-being, and a safe climate. It’s just hiding in the wrong places. With The Wealth Hoarders, we now know where to look.”
May Boeve, Executive Director, 350.org
“Collins gives us a rare insider’s view of the hidden wealth of the 0.1% and how the Wealth Defense Industry maintains inequality. This helps explain how concentrated wealth results in mass asset poverty and the path to building an economy that builds wealth for all, not just the wealthy.”
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Neighborhood Reinvestment Coalition of America
“Chuck Collins’ Wealth Hoarders provides an invaluable perspective on the Architecture of Inequality. Through personal insights and thoughtful research he documents the extraordinary sums of hidden money in financial secrecy jurisdictions. Most importantly, he sets forth a realistic blueprint for essential reforms that can inform our strategies and actions as we work towards real economic justice and security.”
Conrad Martin, Executive Director, Fund for Constitutional Government.
“We won’t be able to effectively tax billionaires if they are hiding trillions in dynasty trusts. This useful book explains how to shut down the hidden wealth system in order to build a fairer tax system."
Frank Clemente, executive director, Americans for Tax Fairness
“Join inequality expert Chuck Collins in his riveting investigation of the secret world of the “Wealth Hoarders,” who are paid by the world’s richest people to protect private wealth. For years, I have used Collins’ books to teach my students about the hidden world of untouchable wealth, because nobody else writes so electrically and entertainingly about global plutocracy. In this book, Collins tracks down trillions of dollars that can be used to replenish our “common wealth” and solve our greatest justice crises.”
Charles Derber, Professor of Sociology, Boston College, author of Moving Beyond Fear and Glorious Causes.
“We can’t have a fair tax system while millionaires and billionaires are hiding trillions of wealth in the shadows. This book is essential to fixing our broken tax system.”
Erica Payne, cofounder and president, Patriotic Millionaires and author of Tax the Rich
“Everyone should read The Wealth Hoarders to understand the secret world of the super-rich. Chuck’s painfully beautiful description of the Wealth Defense Industry lifts the veil to this intricate, maniacal ecosystem set in motion centuries ago and provides critical truths to help us all decolonize wealth.”
Edgar Villanueva, author, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Polity; 1st edition (April 12, 2021)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 150954349X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1509543496
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.4 x 0.7 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #492,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #357 in Economic Policy
- #453 in Economic Policy & Development (Books)
- #508 in Sociology of Class
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Chuck Collins is author of "Altar to An Erupting Sun" (Green Writer Press 2023), a future fiction novel about one community's response to climate disruption. Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future, writes, "We need more books like this one."
His is author of 2021 book, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions (Polity Press). His is also author of the popular book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good (Chelsea Green, 2016) Previous books include Wealth and Our Commonwealth, with Bill Gates Sr., and 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It (www.99to1book.org). He is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good and co-edits the web site, www.inequality.org. He is a national expert on economic inequality, tax policy, corporate power and class privilege and power. He lives in Vermont.
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Legalized Wealth Hiding Intensifies the Oppression of America's Poor
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2021Chuck Collins comes from wealth. In his early twenties, Collins was first introduced to "Family Offices," the anonymous command centers from which the super-wealthy and their lawyers create schemes-within-schemes for shielding the wealth of the super-rich from the prying eyes of the IRS.
And that's precisely what makes this book so useful. Collins, with his insider's view of the matter, is equipped to dig more deeply and explain the dynamics of wealth-hiding more fully than other researchers. And why do Collins' insights into the world of wealth-hiding matter so much? I'm attaching a chart that shows the Saez-Zucman findings on how America's economy has treated (or mistreated) its people for the last century. At our economy's best, from ~1939 to 1979, the appetites of the Top One Percent were held in check, their earnings pulled back to only 10% of the total, an outcome that enabled the Bottom Fifty Percent to expand its share of the economy's income pie from 14% to 20%. 1939 to 1979 became the American economy's golden era of Prosperity Capitalism. Then starting with Reagan, the rules of the American economy were reversed and so, too, were its outcomes. The Bottom Fifty Percent of the American workforce lost almost a third of its previous share. With the skids greased by Reagan, the Top One Percent gorged itself, its income take nearly doubling from a 10% share to a19% share. Prosperity Capitalism is now a thing of the past. Enrichment Capitalism is the Cruel One Percenter's New Normal. And this simple flip, from Prosperity Capitalism to Enrichment Capitalism, tells us why Chuck Collins' insights into the dark world of family offices is so important. He makes it clear that patriotism is of little interest to those in the Top One Percent. If economic fairness is to be revived as one of America's most fundamental principles, a pitched battle by ordinary Americans and their elected officials against the wealth-hiding Family Offices of the super rich will be essential.
Steven Howard Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Legalized Wealth Hiding Intensifies the Oppression of America's PoorChuck Collins comes from wealth. In his early twenties, Collins was first introduced to "Family Offices," the anonymous command centers from which the super-wealthy and their lawyers create schemes-within-schemes for shielding the wealth of the super-rich from the prying eyes of the IRS.
Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2021
And that's precisely what makes this book so useful. Collins, with his insider's view of the matter, is equipped to dig more deeply and explain the dynamics of wealth-hiding more fully than other researchers. And why do Collins' insights into the world of wealth-hiding matter so much? I'm attaching a chart that shows the Saez-Zucman findings on how America's economy has treated (or mistreated) its people for the last century. At our economy's best, from ~1939 to 1979, the appetites of the Top One Percent were held in check, their earnings pulled back to only 10% of the total, an outcome that enabled the Bottom Fifty Percent to expand its share of the economy's income pie from 14% to 20%. 1939 to 1979 became the American economy's golden era of Prosperity Capitalism. Then starting with Reagan, the rules of the American economy were reversed and so, too, were its outcomes. The Bottom Fifty Percent of the American workforce lost almost a third of its previous share. With the skids greased by Reagan, the Top One Percent gorged itself, its income take nearly doubling from a 10% share to a19% share. Prosperity Capitalism is now a thing of the past. Enrichment Capitalism is the Cruel One Percenter's New Normal. And this simple flip, from Prosperity Capitalism to Enrichment Capitalism, tells us why Chuck Collins' insights into the dark world of family offices is so important. He makes it clear that patriotism is of little interest to those in the Top One Percent. If economic fairness is to be revived as one of America's most fundamental principles, a pitched battle by ordinary Americans and their elected officials against the wealth-hiding Family Offices of the super rich will be essential.
Steven Howard Johnson
Images in this review
- Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2021Every time we choose to tax or not tax we redistribute wealth. This book has a wealth of information on how this has been done to working people for a long time.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2021A little more focus would have helped both in casting the problem and in the analysis. Nonetheless, a valuable contribution and should be read by many!
- Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2024I absolutely loved this book. It shows how the ultra rich who can most afford to pay taxes avoid paying their fair share and make the middle class shoulder the burden that they have created. The book is written by an insider who spills the secrets of these “agencies of inequality” a must read
- Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2022Fabulous reading about an industry that has no obligation, loyalty or Empathy to their country or it's citizens that they intentionally hurt. The Wealth Defense Industry must be addressed and held accountable. Laws don't necessarily mean justice.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2021Excellent detail about how the .1% pay so little in taxes to the country that supports them. Most people alive today have no idea how different things once were under both Republicans and Democrats. But that was 50 to almost 90 years ago.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2021The concept of this book was super interesting to me. Unfortunately I can sum most of this book up by saying "Rich People + Their Lawyers Are Bad". That is the central theme of this book, which is totally fine, but the book just restates that over and over and over. It literally could have been 30 pages. Outside of that (and now we are into my personal opinion) it completely ignores that fact that our government plays a very central role in the problems we all face. One example, my wife works in a government program. They spent a ton of money just three years ago to convert to a computerized system. Better late than never right? Progress right? Can't make this up, just this year they went back to a paper based system (I'm talking trees worth a month) because they had not budgeted for any upkeep on the computerized system. No joke. Outside the point here but I felt it relevant as this book makes it seem like these rich people and their employees/representatives are the core of the worlds problems. I am positive they contribute but its a bit more complicated than that (and you dont need hundreds of pages to essentially say that over and over).
- Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2022Really poorly written and very repetitive to the same arguments. The arguments are probably valid.
Top reviews from other countries
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IsabellaReviewed in Italy on February 19, 20243.0 out of 5 stars Utile
Come i miliardari pagano milioni per nascondere i propri soldi. Il libro racconta in che modo i ricchi riescono a moltiplicare i propri soldi e gli schemi che utilizzano per nasconderli. Tutto questo aumenta ancora di più le diseguaglianze. Da leggere
AnonymousReviewed in India on July 4, 20221.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new
The whole book just had one point- The rich have ways of avoiding taxes. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t give an insight on any of the ways.
gkeegReviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 20215.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, concise and straight to the point, of how the system works and is rigged for the rich.
To read
JDReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 29, 20215.0 out of 5 stars One of the best reads in the past year
This book is genius. It sheds light on things that were under my nose but I never considered. I did have notice the change in the world towards the Gothem out of Batman's movies but it was difficult to pinpoint as to what the drive is. Well, all the answers are right there - the world is getting poorer while the 0.1% of the population is getting richer. And they already own trillions. That all falls into place now. And, no, I am not the one who is writing all sorts of slogans on the walls at night :)
Honestly, the way the book begins, it develops characters (fancy that in non-fiction!), it has an excellent pace, remains up-beat up till the end. It does repeat a few things over and over, but I guess that's just for the emphasis purpose. The language is easy to understand, the beat of the book is easy to follow and the load of information is digestible though the contents are quite intense revelation-wise.
I am not fond of this type of literature, I prefer my fiction to be silly rather than patronising - this book is neither. It is a well-structured, saturated read that entertains as well as educates. It is highly recommended to young people especially. And instead of tons of books on other sorts of all offences and inequalities in life, this is THE BOOK that has to be studied at universities and selected by the venerable professors for their lectures. This books discusses THE ONLY source of inequality, as it so turns out to be that this source is quite mesmerizing for many and they mimic it best they can.
My review is not a propaganda, it is just an excited shout for heads up to pick this book over any other one since it does enlighten and helps understand so many things on so many levels. If you are in any dilemma at the moment, I have a very strong suspicion that once you concentrate on the big picture this book discusses even smaller events, apparently quite unrelated, will take on a new shade.
Wonderful all over. Cannot recommend enough.
J. McDonald 🏴Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 28, 20215.0 out of 5 stars The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions.
That the level of wealth inequality has reached obscene proportions in the last 4 decades isn`t disputed by anyone who truly cares about the world we live in – needless to say I disagree with the glib negative reviews posted here.
This book doesn`t really have any unexpected revelations (unless one has been living on another planet) , but it does provide a succinct and timely analysis of just how the rich employ an army of legal defenders to hide their wealth by exploiting loopholes in the law and often employing very unethical (not to say immoral) means to keep from paying their fair share of tax.
Collins` study is informed, very readable and actually quite balanced – the suggestion that it is a case of “bash the rich” by another reviewer is unwarranted – Collins provides examples of ethical and socially responsible players within the wealth management industry and some of the wealthy themselves – he does not judge all by the actions of the worst offenders.
It is a serious issue that vast wealth is siphoned out of the global economy and not circulated; it deprives governments of the means to effectively address fundamental problems such as the current covid pandemic, the advent of global warming and the growing poverty that exists even in developed countries – we all suffer because of the greed of the irresponsible few; it is widely acknowledged that some 80% of global wealth is in the hands of just .1% of it`s population – something you might like to consider.
Read this book if you need a clear and jargon-free picture of how this is happening - then think about what can be done about it - perhaps starting with the ballot box.







