My brother says it should be called "tax avoidsion"

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/jon-field-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion/

Those who are too good to pay their taxes will tell you that there are two separate terms - "tax evasion" is for stuff that's clearly illegal, and "tax avoidance" is hacking the system using legal methods which you should be able to safely get away with.

In "tax avoidance" you don't outright lie about your income, you just weave a creative story about where it came from and/or where it's going

Things you learn when your dad's an accountant...

Edit: I've heard some stories that are more like "avoidsion" though. One guy with a hilarious setup that is legal in the strictest technical sense, but is making an outright mockery of the tax system, allowing him to dump money into home improvements absolutely tax-free.

"I don't say 'evasion', I say 'avoision'!"

Two thumbs UP!

Just goes to show the revenooers will always win in the end no matter how slick the lawyers are.

A guy who shall remain nameless had a restaurant, back in the days of hand written counter checks. He had two cash registers at the store, and two identical ones at home. The counter checks were of two different numbering sequences, and he would shuffle them together, so the wait staff would use a random number of each every day. Each check would be rung through one of the tills at the store, then all would be taken home, where one of the sets of checks was discarded, and the remaining ones were run through the tills in the basement. The reports from the store were destroyed and replaced with the ones from home. The spare cash went in the safe in the basement.

I don't think the revenuers ever caught on.

For a rich guy, 175k and a sentence under 6 months looks like like hand-slap plea bargain.

Curmudgeon wrote: Just goes to show the revenooers will always win in the end no matter how slick the lawyers are... for the 99%

fixed that for ya....

The 1%.... has so many lawyers, and the govt has so many cutbacks.... they just delay, and delay, and then get someone to re-write the law for them....

example... the cap gains tax... 15%? Really, while working people are paying 25%-35%

There is no government agency more aggressive than the IRS. They don't even care how you got the money(pretty sure they'll even accept "5th Amendment" as a job description), they just want their slice.

Streetwiseguy wrote: A guy who shall remain nameless had a restaurant, back in the days of hand written counter checks. He had two cash registers at the store, and two identical ones at home. The counter checks were of two different numbering sequences, and he would shuffle them together, so the wait staff would use a random number of each every day. Each check would be rung through one of the tills at the store, then all would be taken home, where one of the sets of checks was discarded, and the remaining ones were run through the tills in the basement. The reports from the store were destroyed and replaced with the ones from home. The spare cash went in the safe in the basement. I don't think the revenuers ever caught on.

Back in the 1970's it was not unusual for a business to run two sets of books: one for the IRS, one for the bank. The bank's was typically the more accurate and used to justify loans etc. That's a bit more difficult to do now, but not impossible.

Cash is ALWAYS king, practically untraceable.