Taxation Law Books

I read this book and it was just what I needed to lean all about the purpose and need for living trusts. If you are thinking about your estate planning this book is definitey a good read and very informative. I called the number mentioned in the book for a referral but no one ever got back to me. I found that very strange as the entire book is based on useing a trust professional certified by the author. Despite this, the book is very interesting and you will probably get all the information you need in regard to the subject matter. I am glad I purcheased this book and I can now say I know a lot about the need for living trusts and how to get one that meets my estate planning needs.

If you want to know the history of living trusts in modern America and how the legal community looks at things this is a must read. Anyone who does not have a living trust either has no assets or no sense.

This was a gift for my grown daughter. She says it is very useful.

This book contains quite a bit of good information but only after you wade through about 90 pages of sales pitch for living trusts. When you finally get to the part of the book containing actual information about trusts it is disorganized and repetitive to the extreme. Much of the book appears to be excerpts from trust seminars given by the author which are strung end to end to bulk out the book. A good rewrite and editing would make this a more readable, concise and useful book.

It is an excellent guide book IF you have a Living Trust. There are a couple other books that Mr. Abts wrote that precede this one which are all very good and information everyone should know about, if you do not want to go through the expense of lawyers and probate. I am very glad that we had our's drawn up back in 1992. My husband passed in 2001, and this has been a great help to me, along with the help and support of an excellent Trust and Financial Advisor. The Living Trust is valid in every state in the Union.

This book covers most of your questions and describes the basics for banking and corporations established outside the US. It tries to give you the pros and cons of each type of company and a list of places to look into. While it may not be the only book you'll ever need, it does a nice job of detailing what you'll need and how to go about the process of offshore management of finances and protecting your assets. It would have gotten 5 stars if it had been more recent. Still, its' quite worthwhile compared to what else is out there.

This is a good book for teaching newbies the basics of how to go offshore, open bank accounts, and (perhaps most importantly) avoid offshore scams.

The book needs to be read in light of recent revisions to the Patriot Act and new currency transfer reporting requirements. Don't even think of going offshore if your goal is to try to hide money from Uncle Sam, since if your particular plan fails it will probably end up being felony tax evasion.

Famous authors of several other books like this one, for example Jerome Schneider, have already been * convicted * of tax fraud and have handed over their entire client lists to the US Government.

There is no legal way of avoiding US Taxes through offshore banks, offshore trusts, or numbered accounts. These things are only good for:

1.) Asset protection
2.) Diversifying investments/access to greater variety of investments

and that's it. Be wary of advice in books like this one if you are using them to avoid taxes.

If you don't like paying high taxes, give up your residency, hand in your passport and get citizenship in a country with lower taxes.

This book lets you understand the fundamentals of offshore investing to protect yourself from lawsuits and avoid unnecessary tax liability. It focuses on the legal way to avoid exposure. This book is worth the money, but nothing outstanding.

If you are looking for a "feel good" book that only gives you the sugar frosting about offshore without warning you about the many pitfalls, then this book isn't for you.

On the one hand, if your interest is learning about the realities of offshore banking and tax reporting for U.S. citizens, etc., the you will find this a good starter guide. It's also chock full of interesting stories based on Mr. Cornez's personal experiences in the offshore havens.

Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro successfully explain the history of the estate tax, the lobbying battles over it, and the shift from consensus to its repeal in their book Death by a Thousand Cuts. By investigating a range of opinions from Congressmen to farmers, the authors effectively portray how the pro-estate tax side underestimated the ability of organization, group affiliation, and passion to bring about the repeal of a tax that had been accepted without contest for generations. The authors criticize the efforts of large groups and Democratic congressman to organize against the repeal - by illuminating the fact that there was too little organization. While the book provides an accurate and thorough account of the lobbying process that helped lead to the repeal of the estate tax, it provides much unnecessary detail and is obvious in its bias against the repeal of the tax.

For readers who are uneducated in the history of opinions on taxes, Graetz and Shapiro thoroughly describe the evolution of progressive taxation. While not clearly defined in the book, progressive taxation can be explained as a tax that increases as a person's income increases. They describe the shift of opinion on the estate tax when the Republicans made estate tax reform part of their "Contract with America." (Graetz and Shapiro, 15) By using rhetorical frames and spins, pro-repeal groups were able to effectively present the estate tax not as a tax only affecting 2.4% of the wealthy, but as a "death" tax that could potentially "punish" family businesses and farmers by double-taxing their hard earned money. In other words, the authors show how the pro-repealists were successful in presenting the tax in a way that best supported their cause. The authors do a good job showing how much influence organized interest groups can have on government decisions. While the repeal of the estate tax might not necessarily have been a practical crusade, it was a passionate one that eventually won out against the greater good of society and economy, in the opinion of the authors. By putting direct pressure on members of the legislature, pro-repeal groups built a coalition including large numbers of business owners, gays, and the working class, thus encouraging politicians that it would be beneficial to represent and support their cause. With a few wealthy elites being represented by large groups of non-estate tax payers, effective lobbying became the force behind the tax repeal. While the estate tax may have actually benefited some people who worked for its repeal, a pluralistic system prevailed and ended up benefiting the few elites who represented only a fraction of the masses. For an ordinary reader or college student who is unaware of how effective lobbying can be in enhancing American democracy, the authors do a great job portraying the process.

The authors also do a good job providing simple facts on the tax, such as its ability to tax the deceased estate up to 55% and the subsequent $24 billion in government revenue. While they covered some of the services and people who benefit from the tax, they could have been more specific in displaying the direct economic benefits of keeping the estate tax around. If the authors favor the tax, which seems to be the bias throughout the book, why do they not put more effort into displaying its benefits? Despite this lack of information, the authors do a good job explaining the basic components of the tax for readers unknowledgeable on the subject.

When writing about such a widely debated topic, the authors would have benefited by being more cautious in displaying their bias towards keeping the tax around. It tends to distract from their entire argument. From the very beginning, they describe the pro-repeal group's goals as being ones of "conviction and anger" in place of "practicality" (Graetz and Shapiro, 23). While this might be true, blatantly stating their bias against the pro-repeal argument is a good way of losing the reader's trust. Instead of making readers cope with the bias, the author's argument would have been stronger if they would have merely shown the impracticality of the pro-repealists.

The authors also include much un-needed information in the book that tends to get repetitive and boring. Describing all characters by their eye color or ability to cook tends to lose its appeal by the sixteenth chapter when the authors describe Bob Johnson and the paintings covering his walls and his casual way of dressing in black pants and a black polo sweater. Is all this information necessary?

Overall, the book provides good background details on the estate tax and displays the ability of interest groups to change the American government. Graetz and Shapiro successfully provide readers with an educating, enjoyable read that was easy to follow and understand. While it could have been improved by eliminating the obvious bias and the un-needed details, it provides a good look at American government and the power of group affiliation in reaching a goal - whether practical or not.

As its subtitle indicates, the book is about the nitty-gritty details of how the near-repeal of the estate tax got enacted into law. The authors discuss tax policy only tangentially: their focus is on who did what and why. Some actors on both sides acted out of idealistic (or, if you prefer, ideological) motives, many out of self-interested motives. According to the book, the pro-repeal forces were shrewd and far-sighted, whereas the anti-repeal forces were slow and weak. For example, charities have a strong interest in preservation of the estate tax, but were not effective in opposition to repeal, because they did not want to offend their donors and boards of directors. Having finished the book, I now believe I understand what happened. I even understand why the estate tax dies in 2010 and then springs back to life in 2011, a situation that seems insane, but which is a perfectly logical consequence of arcane Senate procedural rules interacting with the fact that the pro-repeal forces had no hope of mustering 60 votes in the Senate.

My grandfather was born in the rural South in 1885. With little help from family and no help from his government, he put himself through college. He married, became a dairy farmer and sired seven children which he brought up and thoroughly educated (all seven went to college)during the Great Depression. Of those seven children, his four sons all became his working partners and one son lived and raised his own family on the family farm.
My grandfather worked HARD, all of his life, to buy and build up a large and prosperous farm. He had 21 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren. One grandson was born with Down's Syndrome and will need costly, special care as he grows older. As an intelligent and well educated man, it is interesting to note that Grandfather started out his adult life as an ardent, LOYAL (his word) Democrat, serving in county politics as a Democrat. Toward the end of his life he switched to the Republican party where most of his progeny now reside.
When this fine, decent man died at the age of 99, his family was death taxed at the exact same rate as Bill Gates, the Kennedys, Steven Spielberg, Warren Buffett, and every other billionaire roaming around today espousing the fine merits of the death tax.
This is the paradox surrounding those Liberals who defend the death tax: family farms ARE being shut down, cut up and sold to pay the death tax. In turn, those family farms are being bought up by developers who are then doing what the Liberal establishment deems so evil: destroying wetlands and natural habitats for wildlife, wreaking havoc with vast tracts of woodlands thus creating increased sprawl or, in John Denver's famous words "more scars upon the land".
All of this because of the supposedly egalitarian notion that the death tax is a well deserved tax for the super rich.
The only thing I have to say about the death tax is this: if we children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren had wanted to sell half of the family farm (which we did NOT wish to do), we would have preferred to have been able to do so and then actually KEEP the proceeds of the sale rather than turn those proceeds over to the federal government.

As a tax attorney, I was excited to purchase this book and get a non-partisan, in-depth look at what was going on with respect to the estate tax. Michael Graetz has a stellar reputation as a law professor, so I was doubly excited.

I was very disappointed that the book's political bias appears on virtually every page. I think reasonable people can disagree on whether we should have an estate tax, but Graetz presents each and every proponent of repeal as a self-interested opportunist. I would have liked to have seen an unbiased account of what "really" goes on in Washington, but this book failed to satisfy.

If you're looking for a book that will confirm your love for the estate tax, and need a reason to pat yourself on the back, this is the book for you. If you are looking for a book that gives you an unbiased account of the world of politics, this book isn't for you. I found Showdown at Gucci Gulch much more interesting.

This book was written by two distinguished experts on tax policy and reviews the development of the campaign to end estate taxes at the federal level. In many cases it is quite informative. But compared to Jeffrey Birnbaum's book on the development of tax policy in Congress (Showdown at Guccci Gulch) is it quite light in a couple of areas.

The book begins with three questions - fundamentally, how did the coalition that formed get together, how did the repeal coalition successfully resist amendments, and finally how did an item like this (seemingly without a high level of support and which cost a lot of revenue and only affects a small number of people) not cause more generalized opposition to the Bush tax bill?

The book is excellent in some of its history (especially the chapter about the use of science in public policy) but is weaker in telling the story of how the current provision was adopted in a consistent manner. The description of the initial phases of the development of the coalition is pretty detailed. The coalition brought together some seemingly disparate interests.

Where the book falls down is in two areas. First, there are some amazing omissions in this book. Bill Gates' father was indeed a leader of the opposition - but at no place in the book does the narrative explain that Gates' father was an attorney who helped to structure estates and thus had a direct interest in the continuation of the tax. At the same time the authors keep coming back to themes - for example, a minor figure in the fight (farm owner Chester Thigpen) is highlighted more heavily than a key Senator like Max Baucus. I would also have liked to have these policy wonks think creatively about the elements of the estate tax which opponents might go forward with - when the inevitable fights come in the future. The opponents of repeal were inept - but how do they go forward? The last time the estate tax was eliminated (surprisingly not mentioned in the book) was in the 1954 revision - the problems which brought the tax back should be instructive to opponents of repeal.

The second area is the authors' limited understanding of how coalitions are built. This book should be more about the politics of the process. The concluding chapter decries the mix of research, politics and moral issues in the current political environment. Indeed, as one who writes about tax issues often, better research involvement could help the process. But the realities of politics that mix moral/philosophical issues and coalitions and evidence are what we should be thinking about.

So if you are interested in tax policy, this is a good book. But if you want to understand how tax policy is made in the real world - there are better books.

Helps You Make the Most Out of the 2001 Tax Law!

The new, 2002 version of this book deserves more than five stars.

As background for reading and considering this review, please be aware that I am an attorney, did well when I studied tax in law school, and employ a top CPA to help me do my tax planning and prepare my returns. Despite all of this background, I find it hard to keep up with the tax laws. Since I became a member of the bar, the number of pages in the Internal Revenue Code has doubled as have the number of pages of tax regulations.

I was inspired to read this book when a conversation with my CPA left me with 14 areas that I wanted to understand in much more detail. I could have asked him, but that would be very costly because he charges by the hour and would have to do research to find out what I wanted to know. Realizing from experience that working with the IRS code and regulations could take many hours, I hoped this book would serve as a time saver, and it did! I found the answers to my 14 questions in less than an hour, and also located several hundred dollars of potential tax savings that I need to discuss with my CPA. The experience was a very satisfying one.

The Federal tax laws changed in 2001, applying to both your 2001 tax return and to future years. Whenever Congress changes the tax law, you need to be alert. If you continue to do what you have done before, you may well make costly mistakes that could lead to extra taxes needing to be paid or even worse, owing money for penalties and interest.

The Ernst & Young Tax Guide 2002 is remarkably helpful in dealing with the 2001 tax law changes. The book opens with a summary of what changed, and gives you references to the sections where you can get more details for your 2001 return. The following section goes on to describe the other changes that will be phased in during 2002 and later years.

To test the guide, I also checked out the most difficult questions that I had had to deal with in the last 20 years, where I was pretty sure the law had not changed. Each of these questions was also accurately and succinctly described.

I was very impressed that I could look up answers in any one of many different ways. The actual 2001 tax forms and instructions are bound into the volume. So that was one starting point. There were also detailed chapters on common topics, from handling mutual funds to taxes on child-care providers. So I could start there. The index was also very complete, and I could dive in from that direction. In addition, the cross-references in the text were very complete and would send me to the right section of the right page.

If you prepare your own returns and have a somewhat complicated return, you will also benefit from the many worksheets in the book. If you are about to start working with an accountant, you will save time and money by using the many lists in the book for what to collect and how to organize it (a pile of paper in a shoe box is not the right way to go!).

You might think that it's too late to affect your 2001 taxes. Actually, you still have some choices open, such as whether or not to make contributions to IRAs between now and April 15. If you are going to be late in making your last estimated tax payment in January, you may also be able to avoid penalties by filing before February 1 and paying what you owe when you file.

May your future not tax you needlessly!

This is the best tax guide on the market. We use it in conjunction with TurboTax to do our taxes, which we file electronically. The tax guide comes in handy for in-depth review of some aspects as well as having a hard-copy throughout the year (well after taxes are filed) so that we can make informed tax decisions. It is a little pricey, but the ton of information and good examples make it worthwhile.

This is the tax guide to buy each year. Unfortunately, it comes out later than the others. Fortunately, that helps ensure it is more accurate and up-to-date.

We have been doing our own taxes for many years, for ourselves, some relatives and volunteering for low-income families. This is the reference we have next to us.

The past couple years we have done BOTH paper and computer tax filing. This book is still needed with BOTH.

Actually, they should call this book Taxes for Retards. I bought it with the hope that it would make doing my taxes a little bit easier this time around. No such luck.

Most of the matter covered in the book is of a very elementary nature - that much you can figure out just by reading the IRS publications for the relevant forms.

In most instances, i found that i had to go back to the irs publication whenever i had any doubt - the book only covered everything superficially.

if you had no idea that irs publishes instructions for all forms or are among the esteemed few who think taxes are optional and/or that the slavery deduction is real- this book is for you. for others who have a fairly good idea of what you are doing, save the ** bucks and spend them elsewhere.

When it comes to understanding and preparing tax returns, or understanding taxation in general, you cannot beat Ernst and Young. When Canada first implemented the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the company of Ernst and Young was among the first to come out with a publication fully explaining this often frustrating, mind-boggling and sometimes complicated tax. Their tax guides are commonly found in many accounting firms and contain excellent resource material. As one who provides information on taxation to my business management class, I have found the information contained here to be thorough and up to date. If I have a taxation question (taxation laws are forever changing,) the Ernst and Young Taxation Guide is the first place I search for the answer. This guide is an excellent book for the resource library and one any business office should have on hand.

This would be an interesting read if there were any truth to it. It took me about 15 minutes to disprove the theories presented herein. It is amazing to me that 2 economics journalists could miss by this much unless they are deliberately trying to mislead readers.

The IRS compiles reports on income and tax payments for all Americans and makes them available to the public. A quick glance at one of the reports shows that earners in the top 10% income bracket pay over 55% of all taxes, which means the other 45% is distributed among the remaining 90% of taxpayers. The bottom 10% pays less than 5% of the overall tax burden.

One example the use heavily is a comparison of George and Barbara Bush's tax return from 1992 to some random middle class American. From this, they attempt to show that the random guy paid a higher percentage of his income in taxes than the Bushes did. What they fail to mention is that most of the Bush's income (almost $900,000) was from Barbara's book sales and that she donated almost all of (over $800,000) it to charity. Taking this into account, the Bushes paid a much higher tax rate than the random guy did.

I don't think this book is worth the paper on which it is written.

I find the author's primary thesis of "rich individuals and corporations shirking their rightful burden of taxes" to be undermined by the simple fact that those very same rich shoulder an enormous share of the financial burden of taxation. The top 1% of wage earners pay over a third of all federal income taxes, and the top 10% pay almost two thirds. I'm a university professor earning about $40K a year, and it seems pretty obvious to me that the wealthy are supporting the lower earners in this country when it comes to their fair share of the federal budget. Does a wealthy person use the army or highways more than I do? Than why should they pay so much more? I understand the attempts of the wealthy (like anyone) to reduce their taxes, and since the wealthy are still shouldering so much of the burden of taxation, I have to assume that their attempts are not quite as successful as the author would have us believe. It seems to me that this book, while well written, is focused too much on the small "tax dodges" and not enough on the big picture, which is that the wealthy are already shouldering more than their fair share of the country's budget.

I'm going to prelude this by saying I haven't completed reading this book yet, but want to express my opinion on what I have read so far. While the information contained is rather interesting and eye-opening, I have to take much of what is said with a grain of salt. The primary reason is that I have come accross several basic math errors in the author's conclusions (the difference between a 19.8% rate and 18.1% rate is NOT 9%). It's also rather dry reading (though I somewhat expected that, considering the topic) and repetitive (did the author really need to provide the exact quotes of 15 different people all saying (effectively) the same thing to make his point?).

I had a concern coming into this book that is was going to be pages of dull tax code jargon that kill any reading joy I might find in a book that bashes politicians. Luckily the authorýs wrote the book for the average Joe and left out the tax code. The basic premise of he book is that there is a special set of rules that the rich have had written into the tax code so that they do not pay the stated rates on the progressive tax system in the USA. This should not surprise most of us as it is the rich and corporations that spend the money with the politicians to get them elected, thus the back scratching has its fingers in the tax code. Now days it is hard to bring this charge up without all the ýClass Warfareý bias charges being tossed at you and this book is probably no exception. To me the authors did not seam to really be that bias, just real mad.

As an average Joe many parts of the book did make me a bit mad, just on the basic fairness point of view. They are good tidbits to have handy next time you are in a discussion with a person that pulls out the ýrich already pay most of the taxesý lines. With that said I did feel that the authors might have been reaching on some of thier complaints about corporations. Like most things it is a matter of degrees and in some parts I thought they went one or two steps over the line. My biggest complaint of the book was the number of person quote examples they used. It was nice to see two or three comments from some Senators on this or that tax bill, but the authors always seemed to use 10 ý 15. It was too much, we all know the politicians all read from the same talking points memos so to spell it out in a book using examples was overkill. Overall the book was interesting but not earth shattering.

America, Who Stole the Dream, was a WONDERFUL READ. I find myself leaning more to the right, from a political perspective, but the authors arguments are EXCELLENT at times and they definitely bring up some great points.

This book is the most well argued book I have read about the current demise of the middle class in the U.S. After reading it I would definitely have to say that I have more concern about political decisions being made in Washington as the authors illustrate that consistently the politicians don't do the right thing for the country.

The authors bring up several concerns

1. Middle class demise via outsourcing of manufacturing to lower cost areas
2. Growing disparity of wealth (the rich own more in % terms)
3. The outsourcing of the `HIGH TECH JOBS' that are to be the savior of the country.
4. Commentary about various social programs set up and how ineffective they are.

In conclusion I would say this book was extremely well researched and I therefore give KUDOS to the authors. While I don't agree with everything they wrote I believe they have put forth an excellent piece of work.

My main contention with the book is that it focuses on the demise of manufacturing and low-end jobs, along with some high tech. The U.S. is expensive from a labor perspective. As we have outsourced much of our manufacturing we have been able to purchase products at cheaper prices in the U.S.. Imagine what some products would cost if we were paying for labor that was, in some cases, 10x higher than current wages in developing countries? NOWHERE in the book do the authors mention the BENEFIT to our standard of living because we can buy more with our dollars than we would be able to do so otherwise. In general, this book is WAY to the left so reader beware.

My background is a B.S. in Acct., an MBA in finance and current interests in economic and social policy development so I found this to be quite an interesting read.

Tue 13 Apr 2004 Street Wire
See (*BCSC) Street Wire
by Brent Mudry
Offshore financier, author and tax dodge promoter Terry L. Neal has pled guilty to conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service through a tax evasion scheme, largely relating to Exchange Bank and Trust, his Nevis-based brass plate bank which handled most of its clients' dealings
through the main downtown Vancouver branch of one of Canada's most reputable banks.

The real crooks are those in The State who are stealing money from taxpayers via taxes (robbery) and inflation (thievery). I'd suggest that these crooks in the massive organized crime family known as the US Government are maliciously prosecuting T.L. Neal. I'd also note that an accusation does not mean someone is guilty, and that even if that is so, it is completely irrelevant to the advice given in this book (Dr. Atkins died of a heart-attack; that in no way impacts the debate on the health of his dietary plan). We should praise T.L. Neal for trying to help the victims of taxes and inflation.

Jan 2, 2003... Offshore financier Terry L. Neal, in U.S. custody since last Friday in criminal tax evasion charges, has been denied bail on the basis of flight risk. In a brief hearing Thursday afternoon in Portland, Ore., duty Magistrate Don Ashmanskas in United States District Court for the District of Oregon cited Mr. Neal's extensive offshore dealings through Caribbean tax havens.

Mr. Neal was represented in court by defence counsel Ronald Hoevet of Hoevet Snyder & Boise, while the lead prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Ross. Mr. Neal was supported in court by numerous of his seven children and 19 grandchildren. Mr. Hoevet confirms a detention appeal hearing is set for Tuesday, Jan. 7, before Judge Garr King, and he will seek Mr. Neal's release on his own recognizance, possibly with a condition of electronic monitoring.

Magistrate Ashmanskas also unsealed a criminal arrest warrant, in which the Internal Revenue Service claims Mr. Neal neglected to declare more than $7-million in penny stock trading income from 1994 to 1996 through accounts in Vancouver, primarily now defunct brokerage C.M. Oliver and the downtown Vancouver branch of Bank of Montreal. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) Mr. Neal made his first court appearance on Dec. 27 before Judge John Delkerks, hours after being arrested.

This book is an extremely well written, lucid, compelling introduction to the "whys", "hows", historical-foundation, and MORAL bases of using "passive resistance" (as opposed to armed rebellion) to reclaim *your* life and *our* country from the welfare state and the statists who have kidnapped our Constitution. ...

Well, I have been reading the book and it has been a very pleasant surprise. Mr. Neal doesn't merely present the technical aspects of various privacy options, he presents a brief but extremely complete and fascinating overview of the history of money, the thinking of this nation's Founding Fathers, and how the Fed creates dollars "out of thin air" in order to collect additional taxes by stealth and help keep everyone subjugated...

Is THIS government what you want for your children? Our Founding Fathers risked there lives to give us freedom: economic as well as religious and political. They said things such as "Give me liberty or give me death" and "That Government governs best which governs least". They would be appalled at how their work has been perverted and how oblivious most of us are to what has been done to their work.

This is an excellent, fascinating book. Buy it. If there was an option for ten stars, I would give it ten. When you get chances to vote AGAINST *both* the Republicans and the Democrats, take them. Both of these parties worship Big Goverment. If you get a safe chance to choke off the funding of government, do it. The only way to stop the growth of this monster is to take away its food. Our Founding Fathers knew what would happen if government got unobstructed access to unlimited tax monies, as it has now obtained. Quoting from Mr. Neal's book, "Thomas Paine summed up these feelings [of the Founders] when he said: 'The punishment of a member (of Congress) who should move for such a law [as fiat money] ought to be death.'" So how come the statists are alive and Mr. Neal is in jail?

The favorable review above of Larry Turpen must be seen in the light that Larry Turpen himself has just plead guilty to felony tax evasion.

Crooks of a feather flock together.

Aaron Young, the CEO of Laughlin International dba Laughlin Associates, also plead guilty along with Neal and will also be spending a year in federal prison

Easy-to-read, well organized, and thoroughly helpful. I recommend "Taxes 2005 for Dummies" to people who want to prepare their own taxes, either by hand or by computer. Excellent advice and strategies for dealing with the IRS.

Table of contents lists each line of the tax form, making information easy to find. Provides instructions for the 1040EZ, 1040A and 1040. (Most books just cover the 1040.) Icons indicate tax-saving tips and warnings to keep you out of trouble. The writers have done an excellent job of turning IRS technical jargon into something we can actually understand.

The only book that guides you step by step to dealing with the IRS. If you received a letter from the IRS, this book will tell you what the letter means, and how to respond to it. The authors even provide sample letters so you can respond promptly. The exceptionally well-written advice for dealing with the IRS is worth the price of the whole book.

Information on reconstructing missing tax records is superb. The authors provide excellent suggestions for substantiating cost basis, business expenses, and fair market value.

The book does not include tax forms, so you will need to obtain them elsewhere (library, post office, on the Internet).

I like this book a lot, because it gave me great ideas about how to structure my finances to take advantage of the tax deductions the government provides.

While the book makes it easy to read and understand your tax return, it fails in its efforts to make complicated tax issues simple. In many cases, I found more questions than answers, particularly in the parts that talk about the section 179 deduction and the modifications made after September 11, 2001.

If you are looking to be able to read and understand your tax return and to identify the tax deductions that are available, this is a great book. Even after reading it, however, you'll probably need a professional tax preparer to make sure you're doing it all correctly.

This book tries it's hardest to explain taxes in an easy to understand fashion for us normal people who don't have time to look through those extremely complex IRS instructions and other gibberish they give us taxpayers. The book does a pretty decent job of it too (however to accomplish that flawlessly, in my humble opinion, is impossible). Overall, any individual or small business that needs a few clues on how to do your taxes can benefit from this book. I can't wait for the 2001 edition to come out!

The book answered all my questions on the new 1998 tax laws. It was also a good guideline for those of us who don't understand taxes very well and are more familiar with the EZ-forms. This was my second year doing the long form with all the attached schedules and the book helped me develop an understanding of what the majority of the terms and references mean. However, since the level of information was BASIC, some of my questions were not addressed and I did not like how the book stated, "...see your tax advisor...". The whole reason I bought the book was so that I wouldn't have to have someone else do my taxes. Although there are only a few unanswered questions for my case, this still prevented me from completing them on my own. Some topics that should be addressed more thoroughly are Capital Gains, Corporate Relocations, and Itemized Deductions. At a minimum, this book should provide a complete listing of topics not covered thoroughly enough to complete the tax forms, and refer you to another book (For Dummies)instead of a legal IRS publication (or tax advisor).

I purchased this book because I was using TaxCut Standard, which is not very helpful at times, and I got stuck on a particular form. This book helped me to understand the Individual 1040, using language that is more clear and personable than the official IRS instructions.

Anybody who itemizes deductions, or who might do so in the future, will find _Taxes for Dummies_ extremely helpful. Plus, throughout the book, there are tips for handling personal finances. Most of these are geared toward the higher-income earner, but nearly everyone can learn from the tips about home ownership and retirement savings. The advice is sound.

I strongly recommend this book as an aid for preparing one's own 2003 taxes.

This is a must-buy for law students taking a class in international tax. Or if you're a lawyer and want to learn the stuff on your own.

But I can see how a layman hoping to figure out how to fill out a tax return would think the book to be useless.

Covers all the important details of international tax law in a concise, easy to understand format. Highly recommended!

This was the most thoroughly informative, entertaining, and magnificent piece of literature I have ever read on any subject. Richard Doernberg sheds light on some of the most difficult concepts in U.S. tax law. His clever insights and piercing intellectual observations will make you reconsider your thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. Doernberg is truly the best thing to happen to international taxation since the check the box regulations.

The International Tax Nutshell is a wonderful overview of international tax. As some comments have indicated, it is a tough area, but Doernberg does a great job of guiding people through the various twists and turns.

Disregard reviews criticizing the technical nature of this book. I became a fond user of the Nutshell series when I was in law school; I don't think that these books were ever intended for use by the Average Joe. By its very nature, the subject matter is technical and can only be simplified so much. There is a reason why there is no such book as "International Taxation for Dummies" or "Brain Surgery for Dummies".

These books are great to use as a springboard for further research and study of the issues covered. I would recommend the book to students and practitioners of accounting, business, and taxation.

This might be a good book if you're Trustee of a multi-million dollar estate, with multiple stocks, million-dollar properties, and yachts. It was not useful for my situation, which I couldn't determine from the description and reviews. If the estate is that complicated and that much money is involved, I'd get an attorney. It would be worth it.

This book was the best informative periodical I could find on the subject of dealing with Trusts. It saved me a lot of grief when issues arose and I needed to address the probate court. This is a terrific guide

re If you are a Bencifiary, Executor of a trust, and a Trustee, or, any combination thereof.

THIS BOOK WILL SAVE YOU ALOT OF FRUSTRATION, time, and money with attorneys. Because this book, tells you what they "Attorney's" ( and in this case I mean 'ALL' Attorney's) won't tell you. It also gives good references to follow up resources.

Get a current "Compact Edition of Trust Law" for your state Probate, at the same time you get this book. It will be the best way to know your states probate proceedings specifics.

If you are hesitant to spend money for this book, just do a Search Inside, and go to Chapter 3, Page 2-4, Be Aware of Covetous Attorneys. <--- Read this twice. YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS.

You need to know why attorney's are creating a situation to support coaxing you to believe, you need a Trust Officer, Co-Trustee.

This book will tell you, that attorneys' know the statue allows them to receive payment of 2% of the trust/estate every year when it is over 1 million dollars.

This book will tell you, having an outside trust accountant is not infallible. And YOU, as Trustee, are still held accountable, if your co-trustee, or trust official handling the court accounting, or finances, invesments, or yearly accounting makes errors, or absconds with funds.

Often, attorney's will look for the smallest reason to talk trustees in to hiring a professional co-trustee/trust official, and to bring this suggestion before guardianship court to fill their bank accounts, yet they will tell you this is the only way to satisfy your disgruntled relatives. All the while
they are attached to all the management of the trust gonig forward.

Because of disgruntled relatives, you will really need to contact your state bar association and Read the Compact Edition of Trust Law, like you breathe air .... daily.

FINALLY if you are a visual person, you will want to check out the contents and several pages of your interests of the following booK, as it is equally a TEN STAR BOOK ----> The Trustee's Guide An Essential Handbook for Trustees, Beneficiaries, and Advisors (Paperback) by Howard I. Gross (Author)

You need to remember the Attorney is not the boss of your relatives Trust.

If you are the Trustee, you need to let acquisitive attorney's know you are not willing to expense the estate friviously and understand, you and you alone are accountable, without throughly exploring the disadvantages before giving a written approval.

This book gives you the know how in calling out bully trust officer activities. Buying this book will help you leave your ignorance at the doorstep.

This is oriented to trusts in general, while I needed information on special needs trusts (SNT). A separate section detailing differences between SNTs and other trusts would have been useful. For those things that are common between SNT and other types of trusts, this provided good coverage.

This is an excellent text. I have used it for an online class where I rarely had to call the teacher for clarification. I also used it during the tax preparation season while assisting taxpayers and it was a great reference. I also find it very handy and very informative. The tips given in the tax break boxes and the columns regarding "Would You Believe?" are very interesting and are good learning points. The examples coupled with the self-study problems really cement the practical application aspect of the text. I have even written some poems about taxes while reading the text!

Books to read for relaxation: Trilogy Moments for the Mind, Body and Soul; Everyday Miracles, and The Language of Poetry Forms

This book is well worth the cost. You can save much more in taxes than you pay for the book if used properly.

Quick shipping and the book was in great condition. I would recommend buying from them again.

Have experienced great product service from Amazon, however any deliver via DHL has been absolutely horrendous. I couldn't seem to locate any accurate tracking of when my package would arrive. I would definitely not order anything via Amazaon that would be delivered via DHL.

Have used this text for a number of years and enjoyed it. It introduces the student to the 1040 and all the basic schedules. The book contains copies of the 1040 and schedules plus worksheets. A practical approach to individual income taxes.