Tax Cheats

It is slightly pleasing to hear that Walter Anderson has been arrested for tax evasion (over $200 million, it is alleged). However, as David Cay Johnston documents in the book Perfectly Legal, it is a rare thing for wealthy tax evaders to be caught, particularly since the gutting of the tax enforcement budget and powers in the late 1990's by the Republican Congress. While there is one evader that has been caught, there are, unfortunately, many, many more out there that have not been caught (or if caught, not prosecuted) that in total cost the government (and law-abiding taxpayers) far more than the $200 million Anderson is alleged to have evaded. It is a large factor in the skewing of the tax system away from being financed proportionately more by the wealthiest (who are better able to pay and owe their wealth in large part to the public goods like enforcement of contracts, etc. that the tax dollars pay for) and towards a system where those with low and middle incomes are forced to pay proportionally higher than the wealthiest. It is a progression that hurts many, many Americans to benefit very few and it erodes the contract between the government and the governed.