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Author Wessel, David, author.

Title Only the rich can play : how Washington works in the new Gilded Age / David Wessel.

Publication Info. New York : PublicAffairs, 2021.
©2021

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Berlin-Peck Memorial Library - Non Fiction  338.87 WESSEL    Check Shelf
 Burlington Public Library - Adult Department  338.87 WESSEL    Check Shelf
 Cheshire Public Library - Adult Department Lower Level  338.87 WESSEL    Check Shelf
 East Windsor, Library Association of Warehouse Point - Adult Department  338.87 WES    Check Shelf
 Farmington, Main Library - Adult Department  338.87 WES    Check Shelf
 Glastonbury, Welles-Turner Memorial Library - Adult Department  338.87 WESSEL    Check Shelf
 Middletown, Russell Library - Adult Nonfiction  338.87 WES    Check Shelf
 New Britain, Main Library - Non Fiction  338.87 WES    Check Shelf
 Newington, Lucy Robbins Welles Library - Adult Department  338.87 WESSEL    Check Shelf
 Portland Public Library - Adult Department  338.87 WES    Check Shelf

Edition First edition.
Description vii, 337 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-321) and index.
Contents And you don't have to die... -- Wizards of OZ : Sean Parker and the EIG Boys -- The brains -- Once upon a time on the Isle of Dogs -- A bill is born -- An archipelago of tax havens -- Choosing the zones -- Don't blame the players, blame the game -- So what happened on the ground? -- Portland : tax breaklandia -- Baltimore : waiting to be asked to the OZ dance -- No guardrails -- Doing good -- The bottom line.
Summary "David Wessel's incredible tale of how Washington works-and why the rich keep getting richer-starts when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur concocts an idea that will save money on his taxes and spins it as a way to ostensibly help poor people. He organizes and pays for an effective lobbying effort that pushes his idea into law with little scrutiny or fine-tuning by congressional or Treasury tax experts-and few safeguards against abuse. With an unbeatable pair of high-profile sponsors, bumper-sticker simplicity and deft political marketing, the Opportunity Zone became an unnoticed part of the 2017 Trump tax bill. The gold rush followed immediately thereafter. In Only the Rich Can Play, Wessel follows the money to see who profited from this plan that was supposed to spur development of blighted areas and help people out of poverty: the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, the Portland (Oregon) Ritz-Carlton, the Mall of America, and self-storage facilities-lucrative areas where the one percent can park money profitably and avoid capital gains taxes. And the best part: unlike other provisions for eliminating capital gains taxes (inheritance, for example) you don't have to die to take advantage of this one. Wessel provides vivid portraits of the proselytizers, political influencers, motivational speakers, consultants, real estate dealmakers, and individual money-seekers looking to take advantage of this twenty-first century bonanza. He looks at places for which Opportunity Zones were supposedly designed (Baltimore, for example) and how little money they've drawn. And he finds a couple of places (Erie, PA) where zones are actually doing what they were supposed to, a lesson on how a better designed program might have helped more left-behind places. Readers will feel outraged as Wessel gives us the gritty reality, the dark underbelly of a system tilted in favor of the few, with the many left out in the cold"-- Provided by publisher.
Subject Parker, Sean, 1979-
United States. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Enterprise zones -- United States.
Business enterprises -- Taxation -- Law and legislation -- United States.
Rich people -- Taxation -- United States.
Tax havens -- United States.
Economic development -- Corrupt practices -- United States.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Taxation / Corporate.
POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Economic Policy.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / Economic Development.
Business enterprises -- Taxation -- Law and legislation. (OCoLC)fst00842641
Enterprise zones. (OCoLC)fst00912642
Rich people -- Taxation. (OCoLC)fst01097543
Tax havens. (OCoLC)fst01143780
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
ISBN 9781541757196 (hardcover)
154175719X (hardcover)
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