America Who Really Pays The Taxes

Author : Donald L. Barlett
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 388 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2013-06-18
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781439129159

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America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? by Donald L. Barlett Pdf

A disturbing, eye-opening look at a tax system gone out of control. Originally designed to spread the cost of government fairly, our tax code has turned into a gold mine of loopholes and giveaways manipulated by the influential and wealthy for their own benefit. If you feel as if the tax laws are rigged against the average taxpayer, you're right: Middle-income taxpayers pick up a growing share of the nation’s tax bill, while our most profitable corporations pay little or nothing. Your tax status is affected more by how many lawyers and lobbyists you can afford than by your resources or needs. Our best-known and most successful companies pay more taxes to foreign governments than to our own. Cities and states start bidding wars to attract business through tax breaks—taxes made up for by the American taxpayer. Who really pays the taxes? Barlett and Stelle, authors of the bestselling America: What Went Wrong?, offer a graphic exposé of what’s wrong with our tax system, how it got that way, and how to fix it.

Author : Vanessa S. Williamson
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2019-03-05
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780691191607

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Read My Lips by Vanessa S. Williamson Pdf

A surprising and revealing look at what Americans really believe about taxes Conventional wisdom holds that Americans hate taxes. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Bringing together national survey data with in-depth interviews, Read My Lips presents a surprising picture of tax attitudes in the United States. Vanessa Williamson demonstrates that Americans view taxpaying as a civic responsibility and a moral obligation. But they worry that others are shirking their duties, in part because the experience of taxpaying misleads Americans about who pays taxes and how much. Perceived "loopholes" convince many income tax filers that a flat tax might actually raise taxes on the rich, and the relative invisibility of the sales and payroll taxes encourages many to underestimate the sizable tax contributions made by poor and working people. Americans see being a taxpayer as a role worthy of pride and respect, a sign that one is a contributing member of the community and the nation. For this reason, the belief that many Americans are not paying their share is deeply corrosive to the social fabric. The widespread misperception that immigrants, the poor, and working-class families pay little or no taxes substantially reduces public support for progressive spending programs and undercuts the political standing of low-income people. At the same time, the belief that the wealthy pay less than their share diminishes confidence that the political process represents most people. Upending the idea of Americans as knee-jerk opponents of taxes, Read My Lips examines American taxpaying as an act of political faith. Ironically, the depth of the American civic commitment to taxpaying makes the failures of the tax system, perceived and real, especially potent frustrations.

Author : T. R. Reid
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2017-04-04
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780735223967

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A Fine Mess by T. R. Reid Pdf

New York Times bestelling author T. R. Reid travels around the world to solve the urgent problem of America's failing tax code, unravelling a complex topic in plain English - and telling a rollicking story along the way. The U.S. tax code is a total write-off. Crammed with loopholes and special interest provisions, it works for no one except tax lawyers, accountants, and huge corporations. Not for the first time, we have reached a breaking point. That happened in 1922, and again in 1954, and again in 1986. In other words, every thirty-two years. Which means that the next complete overhaul is due in 2018. But what should be in this new tax code? Can we make the U.S. tax system simpler, fairer, and more efficient? Yes, yes, and yes. Can we cut tax rates and still bring in more revenue? Yes. Other rich countries, from Estonia to New Zealand to the UK—advanced, high-tech, free-market democracies—have all devised tax regimes that are equitable, effective, and easy on the taxpayer. But the United States has languished. So byzantine are the current statutes that, by our government’s own estimates, Americans spend six billion hours and $10 billion every year preparing and filing their taxes. In the Netherlands that task takes a mere fifteen minutes! Successful American companies like Apple, Caterpillar, and Google effectively pay no tax at all in some instances because of loopholes that allow them to move profits offshore. Indeed, the dysfunctional tax system has become a major cause of economic inequality. In A Fine Mess, T. R. Reid crisscrosses the globe in search of the exact solutions to these urgent problems. With an uncanny knack for making a complex subject not just accessible but gripping, he investigates what makes good taxation (no, that’s not an oxymoron) and brings that knowledge home where it is needed most. Never talking down or reflexively siding with either wing of politics, T. R. Reid presses the case for sensible root-and-branch reforms with a companionable ebullience. This affects everyone. Doing our taxes will never be America's favorite pastime, but it can and should be so much easier and fairer.

Author : Isabel Sawhill
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2018-01-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780300230369

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The Forgotten Americans by Isabel Sawhill Pdf

A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation's economic inequalities One of the country's leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society--economic, cultural, and political--and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. Although many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and the federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

Author : John O Fox
Publisher : Westview Press
Page : 374 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2001-03-25
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : STANFORD:36105110157752

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If Americans Really Understood The Income Tax by John O Fox Pdf

A critique of federal individual income tax policy, and a proposalfor overhauling the system that will appeal to ordinary citizens, liberalsand conservatives, as well as to experts.

Author : Leonard E. Burman,Joel Slemrod
Publisher : What Everyone Needs to Know (H
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2020-02-15
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780190920869

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Taxes in America by Leonard E. Burman,Joel Slemrod Pdf

Arguments about taxation are among the most heated- no other topic is as influential to the role of government and the distribution of costs and benefits in America. But while understanding of our tax system is of vital importance, the complexity can create confusion. Two of America's leading authorities on taxes, Leonard E. Burman and Joel Slemrod, bring clarity in this concise explanation of how our tax system works, how it affects people and businesses, and how it might be improved. The book explores what makes a tax system fair, simple, and efficient, why our system falls short, and whether the new tax law promises much, if any, improvement. Accessibly written and organized in a clear, question-and-answer format, the book describes the intricacies of the modern tax system in an easy-to-grasp manner. It has been revised and updated to both explain the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2017, the most comprehensive reform of its income tax system since 1986, and to examine its likely effects on individuals, businesses, and society. Among the questions discussed are: How much more tax could the IRS collect with better enforcement? How do tax burdens vary around the world? Why do corporations pay so little tax, even though they earn trillions of dollars every year? What kind of tax system is most conducive to economic growth? And, can taxes be fair?

Author : Antonio Sacre
Publisher : Teacher Created Materials
Page : 35 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2021-07-01
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781087619408

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Everyone Pays Taxes ebook by Antonio Sacre Pdf

Help students learn what taxes are, how they work, and why they exist. This nonfiction book describes the purpose and history of taxes, and includes a glossary, short fiction piece related to the topic, and an exciting activity. Above all, this book explains how taxes function in society in an easy-to-understand way. This 32-page full-color book covers how taxes work, the different types of taxes, and what taxes pay for. It also explores important topics like civic duty and democracy and includes an extension activity for grades 3-4. Perfect for the classroom or at-home learning, discover taxation, money, and public goods and services.

Author : Estes. Ralph W.
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : UOM:39015028930413

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Who Pays? who Profits? by Estes. Ralph W. Pdf

Author : Leonard E. Burman,Joel Slemrod
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2012-10-25
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780199995943

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Taxes in America by Leonard E. Burman,Joel Slemrod Pdf

Despite their passion and fury, contemporary Americans are remarkably clueless about how their tax system works. But with heated debates over taxation now roiling Congress and the nation, an understanding of our tax system is of vital importance. Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know®, by preeminent tax scholars Leonard E. Burman and Joel Slemrod, offers a clear, concise explanation of how our tax system works, how it affects people and businesses, and how it might be improved. Accessibly written and organized in a clear, question-and-answer format, the book describes the intricacies of the modern tax system in an easy-to-grasp manner. Burman and Slemrod begin with the basic definitions of taxes and then delve into more complicated and indeed contentious concerns. They address such questions as how to recognize Fool's Gold tax reform plans. How much more tax could the IRS collect with better enforcement? How do tax burdens vary around the world? Why do corporations pay so little tax, even though they earn trillions of dollars every year? And what kind of tax system is most conducive to economic growth? What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Author : Dorothy A. Brown
Publisher : Crown
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2022-03-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780525577331

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The Whiteness of Wealth by Dorothy A. Brown Pdf

A groundbreaking exposé of racism in the American taxation system from a law professor and expert on tax policy NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND FORTUNE • “Important reading for those who want to understand how inequality is built into the bedrock of American society, and what a more equitable future might look like.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist Dorothy A. Brown became a tax lawyer to get away from race. As a young black girl growing up in the South Bronx, she’d seen how racism limited the lives of her family and neighbors. Her law school classes offered a refreshing contrast: Tax law was about numbers, and the only color that mattered was green. But when Brown sat down to prepare tax returns for her parents, she found something strange: James and Dottie Brown, a plumber and a nurse, seemed to be paying an unusually high percentage of their income in taxes. When Brown became a law professor, she set out to understand why. In The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown draws on decades of cross-disciplinary research to show that tax law isn’t as color-blind as she’d once believed. She takes us into her adopted city of Atlanta, introducing us to families across the economic spectrum whose stories demonstrate how American tax law rewards the preferences and practices of white people while pushing black people further behind. From attending college to getting married to buying a home, black Americans find themselves at a financial disadvantage compared to their white peers. The results are an ever-increasing wealth gap and more black families shut out of the American dream. Solving the problem will require a wholesale rethinking of America’s tax code. But it will also require both black and white Americans to make different choices. This urgent, actionable book points the way forward.

Author : Greg LeRoy
Publisher : Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2005-07-21
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781609943516

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The Great American Jobs Scam by Greg LeRoy Pdf

For the past 20 years, corporations have been receiving huge tax breaks and subsidies in the name of "jobs, jobs, jobs." But, as Greg LeRoy demonstrates in this important new book, it's become a costly scam. Playing states and communities off against each other in a bidding war for jobs, corporations reduce their taxes to next-to-nothing and win subsidy packages that routinely exceed $100,000 per job. But the subsidies come with few strings attached. So companies feel free to provide fewer jobs, or none at all, or even outsource and lay people off. They are also free to pay poverty wages without health care or other benefits. All too often, communities lose twice. They lose jobs--or gain jobs so low-paying they do nothing to help the community--and lose revenue due to the huge corporate tax breaks. That means fewer resources for maintaining schools, public services, and infrastructure. In the end, the local governments that were hoping for economic revitalization are actually worse off. They're forced to raise taxes on struggling small businesses and working families, or reduce services, or both. Greg LeRoy uses up-to-the-minute examples, naming names--including Wal-Mart, Raytheon, Fidelity, Bank of America, Dell, and Boeing--to reveal how the process works. He shows how carefully corporations orchestrate the bidding wars between states and communities. He exposes shadowy "site location consultants" who play both sides against the middle, and he dissects government and corporate mumbo-jumbo with plain talk. The book concludes by offering common-sense reforms that will give taxpayers powerful new tools to deter future abuses and redirect taxpayer investments in ways that will really pay off.

Author : Morris Pearl,Erica Payne,The Patriotic Millionaires
Publisher : The New Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2021-04-13
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781620976647

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Tax the Rich! by Morris Pearl,Erica Payne,The Patriotic Millionaires Pdf

A powerfully persuasive and thoroughly entertaining guide to the most effective way to un-rig the economy and fix inequality, from America's wealthiest “class traitors” The vast majority of Americans—71 percent—believe the economy is rigged in favor of the rich. Guess what? They’re right. How do you rig an economy? You start with the tax code. In Tax the Rich! former BlackRock executive Morris Pearl, the millionaire chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, and Erica Payne, the organization’s founder, take readers on an engaging and enlightening insider’s tour of the nation’s tax code, explaining exactly how “the rich”—and the politicians they control—manipulate the U.S. tax code to ensure the rich get richer, and everyone else is left holding the bag. Blunt and irreverent, Tax the Rich! unapologetically dismantles the “intellectual” justifications for a tax code that virtually guarantees destabilizing levels of inequality and consequent social unrest. Infographics, charts, cartoons, and lively characters including “the Werkhardts” and “the Slumps” make a complicated subject accessible (and, yes, sometimes even funny) and illuminate the practical reforms that can put America on the road to stability and shared prosperity before it’s too late. Never have the arguments in this book been more timely—or more important.

Author : Emmanuel Saez,Gabriel Zucman
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2019-10-15
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781324002734

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The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay by Emmanuel Saez,Gabriel Zucman Pdf

America’s runaway inequality has an engine: our unjust tax system. Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the ultra-rich have had their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile, working-class Americans have been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injustice presents a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation, written by two economists who revolutionized the study of inequality. Eschewing anecdotes and case studies, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman offer a comprehensive view of America’s tax system, based on new statistics covering all taxes paid at all levels of government. Their conclusion? For the first time in more than a century, billionaires now pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Blending history and cutting-edge economic analysis, and writing in lively and jargon-free prose, Saez and Zucman dissect the deliberate choices (and sins of indecision) that have brought us to today: the gradual exemption of capital owners; the surge of a new tax avoidance industry, and the spiral of tax competition among nations. With clarity and concision, they explain how America turned away from the most progressive tax system in history to embrace policies that only serve to compound the wealth of a few. But The Triumph of Injustice is much more than a laser-sharp analysis of one of the great political and intellectual failures of our time. Saez and Zucman propose a visionary, democratic, and practical reinvention of taxes, outlining reforms that can allow tax justice to triumph in today’s globalized world and democracy to prevail over concentrated wealth. A pioneering companion website allows anyone to evaluate proposals made by the authors, and to develop their own alternative tax reform at taxjusticenow.org.

Author : Antonio Sacre
Publisher : Triangle Interactive, Inc.
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2022-01-21
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781684523115

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Everyone Pays Taxes by Antonio Sacre Pdf

Help students learn what taxes are, how they work, and why they exist. This nonfiction book describes the purpose and history of taxes, and includes a glossary, short fiction piece related to the topic, and an exciting activity. Above all, this book explains how taxes function in society in an easy-to-understand way. This 32-page full-color book covers how taxes work, the different types of taxes, and what taxes pay for. It also explores important topics like civic duty and democracy and includes an extension activity for grade 3. Perfect for the classroom, at-home learning, or homeschool to discover taxation, money, and public goods and services.

Author : Donald L. Barlett,James B. Steele
Publisher : Thorndike Press
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : STANFORD:36105060783755

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The Great American Tax Dodge by Donald L. Barlett,James B. Steele Pdf

In a book that should infuriate and galvanize citizens everywhere, the bestselling authors of America: What Went Wrong? expose the millions of Americans who are dodging their income taxes at every honest taxpayer's expense. Multimillionaires don't bother to file tax returns, the Internet offers every possible tax escape, the IRS employs double standards in tax audits, and Congress is deliberately undermining the income tax. With the clarity, insight, and readability that earned them two Pulitzer Prizes, Donald Bartlett and James Steele explain how Americans are cheating like never before, and why most are getting away with it.