> In response to your first paragraph, I quote Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand: “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible

> In response to your first paragraph, I quote Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand: “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.” This is completely irrelevant. I'm talking about policy-making. I'm talking about the motivations behind making the rules, not how you work within the rules. > regulatory arbitrage is efficiency seeking That's right. I think that's what I said. > economic freedom as a preemptive regulatory evasion No, but policy-makers are free to take that approach, because they create the rules. If the rules don't cover new behaviour, the motivation - the original political will - behind previous rules often, and in fact usually, creates political will to introduce new rules. That's ok, it's the system working. It's why we have governments on an ongoing basis, and don't just stop once we have one set of laws.