Tax avoidance is not against the law.Originally Posted by Bob Salomon
Tax avoidance is not against the law.
Seems like the Mafia did something like this with gas taxes with gas stations in NY. Some of them served hard time for avoiding the taxes, both state and federal taxes in this case. Once they started getting dunned for the taxes they just opened a new gas tation and did it again.
Avioiding taxes as a business or and individual, I believe, is criminal. Paying the least amount of tax is legal. Just ask our President!
Judge Learned Hand, Gregory v. Helvering 69 F.2d 809, 810 (2d Cir. 1934), aff'd, 293 U.S. 465, 55 S.Ct. 266, 79 L.Ed. 596 (1935)."Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands."
Bob... *avoiding* taxes is legal, evading them is illegal. BTW, I'm far more likely to be on your side on this. :-) When one constantly does not PAY tax... at some point it becomes criminal. Also, Sales (and payroll) taxes are not your $$ in the first place... you are holding the taxes that you have collected from the consumer or the employee in trust, and failure to pay them (i.e., gas taxes) becomes a criminal act much faster than trying to change checking accounts all the time so the IRS can't attach for the balance due on your 1040.
Generally speaking, people that push the envelope like this will also push the envelope when it comes to my fees, etc. I don't like being around them.
Mike Hartfield, CPA
www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-hartfield/15/306/961
Taxes are so daunting that only the very rich can avoid them. Two months of my year's income is set aside to appease our government's kleptocracy.
Do you start collecting on the first sale of the year? If so, what happens to that money if you don't go over the $100,000 or 200 sales? Do you have to return it to the customer or forward it anyway to the state? On the other hand, if you start collecting when the sales go over $100,000 (SD) or 200 sales, one has to assume no collection would have been required on the original sales. Or what?
Flickr Home Page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums
No, but tax evasion is. Specifics of laws to which SCOTUS' ruling is applied will determine whether the "approach" described in post #18 is avoidance or evasion.
There will be unintended and unforeseen consequences of this ruling. Folks will try to find ways around it with corporate dodges (multiple subsidiaries, off-shore incorporation etc) . Folks will get creative. There could be an impact, good ore bad, on eBay, Amazon.and other big internet sellers.
Drew Bedo
www.quietlightphoto.com
http://www.artsyhome.com/author/drew-bedo
There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!
Folks - I've merged the two threads. Thanks to MikeH for getting the renewed discussion off to a constructive and helpful start.
Thom Hogan, who in addition to posting reviews and commentary on Nikon and mirrorless cameras runs a mail-order business selling his DSLR guidebooks, has posted an explainer about the Supreme Court ruling:
http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/...overrules.html
Very good article, Oren. It sounds like we need to learn more about this Marketplace Fairness Act that's before Congress, and if it's reasonable, push to pass it or something similar. We can't do business with more than 10,000 individual tax districts.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks