Perfectly Legal

Fülszöveg

Advance praise for
PERFECTLY LEGAL
"In the highest American tradition, Johnston speaks out boldly and clearly against our nation's corrupt political, legal, and tax-collecting system. This astonishing exposé will open your eyes to the urgent need for reform— the sooner, the better. Reading Perfecdy Legal is the first step to bringing American government back to its citizens." —John C. Bogle, founder and
former CEO, The Vanguard Group
"Perfecdy Legal will get you mad as hell. Even if you suspected all along that the system favors the rich, you're going to be shocked to learn just how badly you're being screwed." —Greg Palast, author of the
New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
"At last. Dávid Cay Johnston proves what we've suspected for a long time: It's the super rich against all, and I do mean all. For the rest of us, the deck is stacked against. It's a cancer on the whole system. This book is vitai, an infuriating call to action." —Jim Hightower,... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Advance praise for
PERFECTLY LEGAL
"In the highest American tradition, Johnston speaks out boldly and clearly against our nation's corrupt political, legal, and tax-collecting system. This astonishing exposé will open your eyes to the urgent need for reform— the sooner, the better. Reading Perfecdy Legal is the first step to bringing American government back to its citizens." —John C. Bogle, founder and
former CEO, The Vanguard Group
"Perfecdy Legal will get you mad as hell. Even if you suspected all along that the system favors the rich, you're going to be shocked to learn just how badly you're being screwed." —Greg Palast, author of the
New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
"At last. Dávid Cay Johnston proves what we've suspected for a long time: It's the super rich against all, and I do mean all. For the rest of us, the deck is stacked against. It's a cancer on the whole system. This book is vitai, an infuriating call to action." —Jim Hightower, author of
Thieves in High Places
"Dávid Cay Johnston demonstrates with clear, cool, and motivating prose how the very rich need only to pay their tax lawyers to make you pay for their massive illicit wealth—individual and corporate—which is impover-ishing our country's necessities and swelling its deficits. This is a book that will either shame us or prod us into taking back our tax system as if fairness, productivity, and authentic patriotism matter." —Ralph Nader
• Roberto Goizueta, CEO of Coca-Cola, built a billion-dollar personal fortune without paying a dime in taxes on it.
• Ingersoll-Rand pays $26,000 a year to maintain a Bermuda post office box as its legal headquarters. That little trick lets it escape $40 millión in corporate taxes.
• The IRS unjustly came after a cleaning woman in East Los Angeles who earns $7,000 per year, but ignored the fact that a billionaire art dealer has never filéd 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 normál 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 cor-rupted—under both Republican and Democratic administrations—to serve the needs of people who make millions.
If you're the kind of person who works hard and plays by the rules, prepare to be outraged. Perfectiy 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 richest and most powerful fraction of 1 percent of our country.
For nine years, Dávid 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 feath-
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ers of powerful business leaders, politicians, and members of the political donor class. He routinely exposes the CEOs who fly corporate jets to Myrtle Beach for a day of golf and stick you with the bili; 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 sto-ries 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 bla-tant lawbreakers. And you'll meet ordinary Americans who are struggling to make a decent liv-ing but whose future is being undermined 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.
DÁVID 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. Vissza