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Their Fair Share: Taxing the Rich in the Age of FDR . By Thorndike Joseph J. . Washington, DC : The Urban Institute Press . 2013. Pp. xii, 349. $29.50, paper
Reviews of Books
United States and Canada
This is an outstanding book. Joseph Thorndike ambitiously summarizes over thirty years of proposed and enacted tax reforms, with particular focus on the policies of Franklin Roosevelt as governor and president. Thorndike traces the ideological origins and evolution of policies through their enactment and, in some cases, their eventual demise in Congress. The narrative is supported with a tremendous amount of historical scholarship. Thorndike also does his readers a favor by writing in the exact opposite style of the tax bills he summarizes; his clear, entertaining writing had this reviewer turning the pages quickly.
Thorndike analyzes FDR because he left perhaps the most lasting impression on the federal tax system of any president. This is not just because he was in office longer. FDR is said to have taken the federal income tax from "class tax" to "mass tax." The "soak-the-rich" income tax from 1913 through Hoover featured high exemptions that had only 5 to 10 percent of Americans paying any income tax. The number of individuals filing tax returns went from around 5 million in the 1930s...