THE SUBTERRANEAN ECONOMY

An undiscriminating tirade against the furtive and fertile world of tax-eluding, off-the-books income--an increasingly important factor in the global economy likened, here, to ""civil disobedience."" Bawly, an international-type accountant, fulminates against outright cheating or simply slick tax planning with equal enmity. For him, illegal evasion and legal avoidance are merely two forms of what he calls, inelegantly, ""avoision."" (Even medical deductions seem to him to be a form of ""avoision."") The Eurodollar laundering of illicit funds, unreported moonlighting by white- and blue-collar workers, and other suspect practices are attributed to confiscatory tax rates, inefficient government spending, and lack of serious interest by national authorities. ""If there is a villain in the act,"" writes Bawly, ""it is big government."" The book was written just before the 1981 trickle-down tax law was passed. Whether the new Reaganomics will reduce the size of the underground economy remains to be seen; but no interested observer (presumably including the author) would bet on it. Not a text for the player or monitor of tax games--techniques are surrendered only reluctantly--and rather too wholesale in its denunciation for any but the already-convinced.