If you do it aboveboard using lawyers and accountants to minimize the amount of tax you owe, it's tax avoidance. Legal as church on Sunday. Tax evasion, on the

If you do it aboveboard using lawyers and accountants to minimize the amount of tax you owe, it's tax avoidance. Legal as church on Sunday. Tax evasion, on the other hand, is a crime. That only comes into play when you commit some manner of fraud to get out of taxes. Difference between the two: 1) You get $4,000,000 from (complicated but legal business deal) and report it on your return. Your lawyers and accountants successfully argue that due to subparagraph q of the Arglebargle Business WhangoZango Act of 1919, originally designed to allow orphanages to deduct the cost of gruel, this money is not subject to taxes (or gets taxed at a lower rate, or whatever). That's tax avoidance -- perfectly legal -- and that's why people like Trump, the Pelosis, the Kennedy family, the Zuckerbergs, the Kochs, the Heinz-Kerrys...pay accountants and lawyers big bucks. 2) You get $4,000,000 from your meth business and don't report it at all, having failed to take your attorney Saul Goodman's advice on how to launder it. That's tax evasion, and that's what gets you sent to PMITAFP.