Synopses & Reviews
“No other modern country gives corporations the unfettered power found in America to gouge customers, shortchange workers, and erect barriers to fair play. A big reason is that so little of the news . . . addresses the private, government-approved mechanisms by which price gouging is employed to redistribute income upward.” You are being systematically exploited by powerful corporations every day. These companies squeeze their trusting customers for every last cent, risk their retirement funds, and endanger their lives. And they do it all legally. How? It’s all in the fine print. David Cay Johnston, the bestselling author of
Perfectly Legal and
Free Lunch, is famous for exposing the perfidies of our biggest institutions. Now he turns his attention to the ways huge corporations hide sneaky stipulations in just about every contract, often with government permission. Johnston has been known to whip out a utility bill and explain line by line what all that mumbo jumbo actually means (and it doesn’t mean anything good, unless you happen to be the utility company). Within all that jargon, disclosed in accordance with all legal requirements, lie the tools these companies use to rob you blind. Even worse is what’s missing—all the contractually binding clauses that companies hide elsewhere yet still enforce and abuse. Consider, for example, how:
- An insurance company repeatedly delayed paying for a paralyzed man’s vital care despite court orders to pay up.
- Laws in nineteen states let companies like Goldman Sachs, General Electric, and Procter & Gamble pocket the state income taxes withheld from their workers’ paychecks for up to twenty-five years.
- A little-known government rule gives safety waivers to deadly industrial facilities secretly located underneath schools and playgrounds.
- The “FCC Charge” on your phone bill, which appears to be a government fee, actually goes straight to the phone company.
Johnston shares solutions you can use to fight back against the hundreds of obscure fees and taxes that line the pockets of big corporations, and to help end these devious practices once and for all.
Review
"[Johnston's] book is a thoughtful overview for any citizens willing to educate themselves on the issue." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Despite its sarcastic title, Perfectly Legal is a scrupulously reported, anecdotally rich wake-up call urging all of us to not only follow the money but also pay the piper." Boston Globe
Review
"As Johnston knows, the real scandal of our federal tax system isn't so much what the rich didn't pay. It's what the rest of us now have to." James K. Galbraith, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Perfectly Legal...stands as one of the best, and certainly one of the most thorough examinations of the perfidies of recent tax policy in the United States." San Diego Union-Tribune
Synopsis
One of the country's top investigative reporters reveals how the richest 1 percent of the country has rigged the tax code and other laws in its favor.
Since the mid-1970s, there has been a dramatic shift in America's socioeconomic system, one that has gone virtually unnoticed by the general public. Tax policies and their enforcement have become a disaster, and thanks to discreet lobbying by a segment of the top 1 percent, Washington is reluctant or unable to fix them. The corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the gift tax have been largely ignored by the media. But the cumulative results are remarkable: today someone who earns a yearly salary of $60,000 pays a larger percentage of his income in taxes than the four hundred richest Americans.
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston exposes exactly how the middle class is being squeezed to create a widening wealth gap that threatens the stability of the country. By relating the compelling tales of real people across all areas of society, he reveals the truth behind:
- "middle class" tax cuts and exactly whom they benefit
- how workers are being cheated out of their retirement plans while disgraced CEOs walk away with millions
- how some corporations avoid paying any federal income tax
- how a law meant to prevent cheating by the top 2 percent of Americans no longer affects most of them, but has morphed into a stealth tax on single mothers making just $28,000
- why the working poor are seven times more likely to be audited by the IRS than everyone else
- how the IRS became so weak that even when it was handed complete banking records detailing massive cheating by 1,600 people, it prosecuted only 4 percent of them
Johnston has been breaking pieces of this story on the front page of
The New York Times for seven years. With
Perfectly Legal, he puts the whole shocking narrative together in a way that will stir up media attention and make readers angry about the state of our country.
Synopsis
A bestselling author's shocking analysis of the many ways everyday people are systemically victimized by powerful corporations.
David Cay Johnston has made a name for himself as the defender of the common man, calling out the rich and powerful for cheating the system at the expense of everyone else. Whether he's exposing unjust loopholes in the tax code that help the rich get richer or pointing out how powerful corporations pocket government subsidies at excessive taxpayer expense, Johnston is an eloquent town crier for justice and equality.
Now this bestselling author has turned his attention to the sneaky stipulations hidden in the fine print of just about every contract and government rule. Johnston has been known to whip out a utility bill-any utility bill-and explain line by line what all that mumbo jumbo actually means (and it doesn't mean anything good, unless you happen to be the utility company). Within all that jargon, disclosed in accordance with all legal requirements to you, the unsuspecting customer, lie the tools many companies use to rob you blind. Even worse is what's missing-all the contractually binding clauses that companies hide elsewhere yet still enforce.
The Fine Print is essential reading for anyone who wants to wrest power from devious corporations and end their long-standing consumer abuse.
Synopsis
Now updated with a new prologue!
Since the mid-1970s, there has been a dramatic shift in America's socioeconomic system, one that has gone virtually unnoticed by the general public. Tax policies and their enforcement have become a disaster, and thanks to discreet lobbying by a segment of the top 1 percent, Washington is reluctant or unable to fix them. The corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the gift tax have been largely ignored by the media. But the cumulative results are remarkable: today someone who earns a yearly salary of $60,000 pays a larger percentage of his income in taxes than the four hundred richest Americans.
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston exposes exactly how the middle class is being squeezed to create a widening wealth gap that threatens the stability of the country. By relating the compelling tales of real people across all areas of society, he reveals the truth behind:
- "middle class" tax cuts and exactly whom they benefit
- how workers are being cheated out of their retirement plans while disgraced CEOs walk away with millions
- how some corporations avoid paying any federal income tax
- how a law meant to prevent cheating by the top 2 percent of Americans no longer affects most of them, but has morphed into a stealth tax on single mothers making just $28,000
- why the working poor are seven times more likely to be audited by the IRS than everyone else
- how the IRS became so weak that even when it was handed complete banking records detailing massive cheating by 1,600 people, it prosecuted only 4 percent of them
Johnston has been breaking pieces of this story on the front page of The New York Times for seven years. With Perfectly Legal, he puts the whole shocking narrative together in a way that will stir up media attention and make readers angry about the state of our country.
Synopsis
A bestselling authors shocking analysis of the many ways we are victimized by corporations
David Cay Johnston, the bestselling author of Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch, is famous for exposing the perfidies of our biggest institutions. Now he turns his attention to the ways huge corporations hide sneaky stipulations in just about every contract, often with government permission.
No other modern country gives corporations the unfettered power found in America to gouge customers, shortchange workers, and erect barriers to fair play. Johnston shares solutions you can use to fight back against the obscure fees and taxes, and to help end these devious practices.
About the Author
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter who has been called the “de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States.” His most recent books,
Perfectly Legal and
Free Lunch, were
New York Times bestsellers. He was a reporter for
The New York Times for thirteen years and now writes a column for Reuters. He also teaches at Syracuse University College of Law and the Whitman School of Management, and he was recently elected board president of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. He lives in Rochester, New York. Visit www.davidcayjohnston.com
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1: Taxes - They're Not for Everyone
Chapter 2: A Nickel an Hour More
Chapter 3: The Rich Get Fabulously Richer
Chapter 4: Big Payday
Chapter 5: Plane Perks
Chapter 6: When the Old Man Is Dead and Buried
Chapter 7: The Stealth Tax
Chapter 8: How Social Security Taxes Subsidize the Rich
Chapter 9: Preying on the Working Poor
Chapter 10: Handcuffing the Tax Police
Chapter 11: Mr. Rossotti's Customers
Chapter 12: For Want of a Keystroke
Chapter 13: Mr. Kellogg's Favorite Loophole
Chapter 14: Mass Market Tax Evasion
Chapter 15: Getting Off the Hook
Chapter 16: Profiting Off Taxes
Chapter 17: Profits Trump Patriotism
Chapter 18: Letters to Switerzland
Chapter 19: Gimme Shelter
Chapter 20: Only the Rich Deserve a Comfortable Retirement
Chapter 21: Is Reform Possible?
Conclusions
Notes
Index