Don't Just Tax the Rich

Before we tax the rich, ask a more dangerous question: who paid for their fortunes?

A worker's wages are garnished, public money props up the balance sheet, and the profits are celebrated as genius. Then a politician arrives promising "justice": the billionaire will finally pay a higher tax rate. You might welcome the revenue - but you'd still be owed something more basic. What about giving back what was taken?

Don't Just Tax the Rich, Pay Workers What They're Owed is Venezuelan author Juan Rodulfo's forensic takedown of America's most comfortable myth: that today's mega-fortunes are simply the prize of hard work, and that taxation alone can make them fair. Drawing on wage-theft research, NLRB filings, SEC records, GAO reports, and Economic Policy Institute data, Rodulfo follows the money through seventeen of America's largest employers - Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, Tesla, McDonald's, Dollar General, Boeing, Apple, and more.

Inside, you'll discover:

• The Hidden Payroll - how taxpayers quietly underwrite the payrolls of America's largest employers through SNAP, Medicaid, and public-assistance navigation built into corporate onboarding
• Union Avoidance at Scale - the billion-dollar anti-union consulting industry, who buys it, and whether busting unions actually raises profits
• The Contractor Shield - how subcontractors and gig apps are engineered so that someone else bears the blame, the risk, and the losses
• The Corporate Subsidy Files - CHIPS Act megadeals, tax abatements, and the architecture of American influence that converts public money into private equity
• The Universal Restitution Formula - a provocative framework for calculating, and returning, what workers were never paid

This is not a book about envy. It is a book about accounting. Rodulfo separates lawful advantage from unlawful conduct, then asks the question the tax debate keeps dodging: if a fortune depends on unpaid obligations, is a tax payment an adequate substitute for paying those workers?

Perfect for readers of Nickel and Dimed, Dirt Cheap, and Evicted; for organizers, HR professionals, economists, and every worker who has ever watched profits soar while their paycheck stayed flat.

The rich may owe taxes. But someone else - someone with no yacht and no foundation - may be owed something bigger: restitution. Start with the ledger. Then demand the refund.