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Comment by ryanlol | Hacker News Reader

There's a very clear fiduciary duty to pay as little money in taxes as you can, there exists no such duty to pay too much taxes.

This is very black and white.

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No, it isn't. Your statement is wrong and based on a flawed interpretation of Dodge v. Ford that makes the rounds on the Internet and refuses to die.

Thank you. Actions that are deemed to have been taken solely for their tax effects are clearly and explicitly deemed tax evasion by the IRS, and are prosecuted as such. I believe other countries have similar standards. There's a lot of room to give people the benefit of the doubt, e.g. by counting the good will from charitable activities as a credible alternate reason, but there's no license and certainly no requirement to cheat.

>Actions that are deemed to have been taken solely for their tax effects are clearly and explicitly deemed tax evasion by the IRS

This is just not true.

Here are some citations.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-58.pdf

https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Guidance-for-Examiners-and-Ma...

Just look up "sham transaction" for plenty more. It's a very well established concept and doctrine. Nobody should be splitting hairs about avoiding vs. evading taxes, or generally pontificating about fiduciary duty, without understanding it.

That's not what you said though.

>Actions that are deemed to have been taken solely for their tax effects are clearly and explicitly deemed tax evasion by the IRS

What you said would make almost all tax avoidance into tax evasion. Hell, even claiming deductions would by your logic be tax evasion.

You didn't read the citations before saying that, did you?

The citations do not support your original claim.

No? Could you expand on that a little please.

Based on my reading there certainly exists such a duty when it's beneficial, obviously tax avoidance isn't explicitly beneficial though. Potential law changes or even bad press could cost more than the amount of money saved.

No, there isn't. There is a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of shareholders. To extrapolate that out to tax evasion is just plain silly.

I suggest you reread my comments as I never made such a connection.

tax avoidance=/=tax evasion

Could you please try to be more consistent about which of your two accounts - ryanlol vs. ryanl0l - you use for your replies here? Keeping up with one is tedious enough.

You should reconsider whatever client program you're using if it's causing issues.

It's not my client. It's you replying with one account so you can still downvote with the other. That "all's fair" attitude seems to exist in more domains than just taxes.

If you're that worried about your internet points, perhaps you should email hn@ycombinator.com and find out that I've in fact not downvoted your replies.

(In the future you might want to do that before accusing others of such)

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