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It gets very complicated at the high levels of tax compliance. I am part of a company who had paid a specialized company to set up a tax advantaged structure in

It gets very complicated at the high levels of tax compliance. I am part of a company who had paid a specialized company to set up a tax advantaged structure in a foreign country several years ago in order to avoid capital gains tax. The tax treaty document between the US and this country was over 100 pages long. When it came time to actually take the tax advantages on a return, we decided to figure out what the risks were of being audited and potential penalties. We engaged several tax experts to give their opinion. What ensued was eye opening. We received wildly different opinions depending on the expert. The entire case hinged upon how one line in that 100+ page document could be interpreted. At the end of the day you are subject to the mercy of the IRS. For a large corporation, you may be able to afford the litigation (or avoid it all together as you could proactively play to the court of public opinion). For us, we decided to fire the tax consultant and pay the tax. It was - for us - a very large sum, several million dollars. Ultimately the “laws” are less like a set of rules and more a set of malleable guidelines. People who say, “oh I can just take whatever loopholes I’ve been given” don’t understand the sheer complexity and ambiguity of the tax code. While I’m disappointed that we “lost” that money (one could argue it wasn’t ours to begin with), and disappointed that others are morally flexible enough or big enough to get away with it, I am left with the feeling that we did the right thing for the country as a whole. I am sad that more companies and individuals don’t consider that in their moral calculation.

908B64B197 6y ago
> Ultimately the “laws” are less like a set of rules and more a set of malleable guidelines. People who say, “oh I can just take whatever loopholes I’ve been given” don’t understand the sheer complexity and ambiguity of the tax code. I wonder if it's laziness or by design. > While I’m disappointed that we “lost” that money (one could argue it wasn’t ours to begin with), and disappointed that others are morally flexible enough or big enough to get away with it, I am left with the feeling that we did the right thing for the country as a whole. I am sad that more companies and individuals don’t consider that in their moral calculation. That's the thing: Moral should never come into play. If it does, that means the law wasn't written properly.
P_I_Staker 6y ago
It's funny how that works as companies scale up. A relative owns a small business and needed to get rid of an employee. She wound up laying her off, and taking the insurance hit. She wasn't the best employee and there probably could have been an argument for causal firing, "I'm not going to just lie" is what she said. Many larger orgs would just try to go for a causal firing, so they can block the employee from receiving unemployment. It doesn't even matter if they're an otherwise decent employee. We'll save money so lets just lie, basically. It's pretty crushing to the individual, and IMO this practice should be abolished. This is totally anecdotal and plenty of small to medium businesses act shady, but it's interesting that things tend to get even shadier (lawful evil) as things scale up. Yet there's less at stake for the individual employees and more ability to "not be evil", without closing up shop.

908B64B197 6y ago

> Ultimately the “laws” are less like a set of rules and more a set of malleable guidelines. People who say, “oh I can just take whatever loopholes I’ve been given” don’t understand the sheer complexity and ambiguity of the tax code. I wonder if it's laziness or by design. > While I’m disappointed that we “lost” that money (one could argue it wasn’t ours to begin with), and disappointed that others are morally flexible enough or big enough to get away with it, I am left with the feeling that we did the right thing for the country as a whole. I am sad that more companies and individuals don’t consider that in their moral calculation. That's the thing: Moral should never come into play. If it does, that means the law wasn't written properly.

P_I_Staker 6y ago

It's funny how that works as companies scale up. A relative owns a small business and needed to get rid of an employee. She wound up laying her off, and taking the insurance hit. She wasn't the best employee and there probably could have been an argument for causal firing, "I'm not going to just lie" is what she said. Many larger orgs would just try to go for a causal firing, so they can block the employee from receiving unemployment. It doesn't even matter if they're an otherwise decent employee. We'll save money so lets just lie, basically. It's pretty crushing to the individual, and IMO this practice should be abolished. This is totally anecdotal and plenty of small to medium businesses act shady, but it's interesting that things tend to get even shadier (lawful evil) as things scale up. Yet there's less at stake for the individual employees and more ability to "not be evil", without closing up shop.