Rating: 
Summary: David Cay Johnston is Republican
Review: For those of you who have written saying the David Cay Johnston
is "anti GOP" and that this book "is another liberal class warfare agenda piece" please note that Mr. Johnston is a registered republican.
Rating: 
Summary: Shocking News
Review: To everybody who thinks Johnston must be a liberal Democrat I thought I'd let you know he is a registered Republican. This is public knowledge and you are free to look it up.
Rating:
Summary: In Response to Conservatives Decrying This Book...
Review: I have seen several reviews dismissing this book as yet another example of "leftist politics" in the media. The fact of the matter is that the author, David Cay Johnston, is on the record as being a registered Republican. Democrats are not the only ones outraged by President Bush's policies and the unfair, inscrutable nature of our tax laws.
Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting
Review: Many of these reviews have said that this book is liberally biased, but I think it is important to not that he is in fact a registered Republican
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Just want to clarify one thing. The people who gave this book a poor rating seem to think David Cay Johnston is a democrat. In fact he is a registered Republican.
Great book...bad GOP.
Rating:
Summary: Tax inequity lesson from a Registered Republican.
Review: That's right. He was just asked about this live on CNN.This clearly non-partisan book was written by a Republican. I wondered about his affiliation as I read it. Any American who pays taxes should read this book. A troubling read about the current direction of our great country.
Rating:
Summary: The tunnel is VERY dark, but it is a tunnel....
Review: Like most books about reform Johnston's book starts out and spends 90 percent of its space on what is wrong with the system, citing example after example of shocking, scandalous and angering abuse. Mr. Johnston has what is better described as a liberal outlook rathher than a bias. More conservative Americans should go directly to the chapter entitled "The Stealth Tax" about the Alternative Minimum Tax, responsibility for which Johnston lays directly on thirty years of Democratic "tweaking". They may then be more willing to read about what he has to say in the other chapters of this book. "Perfectly Legal" is VERY readable, but there were still things which I had to go over two or three time before I began to believe I understood what was happening. For me Mr. Johnston makes three very important points: 1. We get the America that we pay for. 2. We have to decide what we want that America to be. (Our tax system was designed for a national, wage earning tax base, not the global, investment income tax base, we now have.) 3. The tax system in NOT intuitive. (The results we hope for when we cut taxes is not necessarily the result we will get, almost CERTAINLY not in the long run.) Everyone should read this book. Fiscal conservatives should be patient with Johnston's liberal outlook and read about Bob Goizueta and Jack Welch. Then if you still believe they were fair to the American tAxpayer, ask yourself if they were fair to the shareholders of Coca-Cola and GE.
Rating: 
Summary: This is about politics, not taxes or economics
Review: I don't know much about David Cay Johnston (except this book), but I do know his employer, the New York Times, is about as stridently anti-GOP, anti-Bush as any publication out there. So, I'm not surprised to see no mention here about how the top 1% of earners pay more than a third of all income taxes, or that the top half pay almost 95%, but you CAN find that data on the IRS's own website. So, if these guys are rigging the tax system, they're doing a pretty poor job of it.
Rating:
Summary: Where are the votes?
Review: Where are all the customer votes on the reviews? Something very odd here!
Rating:
Summary: Compelling case for Nader to run again
Review: Interesting that Ralph Nader's quote appears on the jacket. Does anyone really think either Democrats or Republicans are serious about tax reform? This book will certainly disabuse you of that notion. Kevin Philips documented the same point in his Politics of Rich and Poor back in 1990. Nader and other "fringe" candidates are the only ones with the balls to call the corrupt marriage of Congress and the "political donor class" (as Johnston calls it) for what it is. Can you explain how Democrats supported the Bush tax cuts for the super wealthy without a large measure of corruption? Perhaps things just have to get worse before they can get better. The prose is sometimes awkward and there are editing errors (e.g. the table on p. 294 incorrectly calculates the rate of "cases not pursued" where individual returns do not match partnership returns as 78% when the figures it cites - 2.9 of 13.3 million cases - would equal 22% cases not pursued). But these are minor points in an otherwise utterly compelling expose of the realities of really big money. Why is it that Democrats like Kerry, Edwards and ol' Bill Clinton have done (and say) so little about this? Why are they so impotent in communicating to the great majority of the American people that welfare for the rich is the great rip-off of the last 25 years? Is it timidity, or stupidity, or good ol' boy politics that makes the "political donor class" bullet-proof? Go Ralph!
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