The Decline (And Fall?) of the Income Tax

Cuts through the hype to tell you what tax reform proposals will really do to your wallet. To cheering crowds, politicians announce plans to dismantle the "IRS as we know it" and replace it with flat taxes and consumption taxes. But if we burn our 1040 forms, will we really be better off? In this trenchant book a distinguished law professor who served in the Treasury in the Bush administration takes a no-holds-barred look at our leaders' compulsion to use the tax system for short-term political ends. With telling anecdotes of politicking past and present, Michael Graetz shows how Congress lost the public's trust on tax policy: taxing more and more of people's stagnant buying power during the high-inflation years of the '70s and '80s, requiring ever more complicated tax forms and filings, and continuing to promise reform while powerful corporations and the rich dodge paying their fair share all while failing to deliver the goods in a tough economy. Taking on current proposals for tax reform, Graetz cuts through the rhetoric and crunches the numbers to reveal that ordinary taxpayers will foot a disproportionate share of the bill for flat and consumption taxes. Most of all, he demonstrates how PACS have become a legalized form of influence peddling that especially corrupts the political process where taxes are concerned. Breaking down the political deals and bureaucratic stupidities that have made the tax system so burdensome, he points the way to a saner, fairer system.