"A gripping account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British...

"Over the last century, countries have typically followed either the United States model or the United Kingdom model in taxing corporate income. In the U.S., corporations are subject to tax as separate entities under what is called the classical system. Income is taxed first to the corporation...