It's not possible to determine the spirit of the tax law an objective way: the tax law is actually an accretion of a bunch of laws and amendments, passed decades apart by different people with different intentions, who were influenced by the politics of their time, lobbyists, the state of the economy, the upcoming presidential election, etc.

For example, some parts of tax law were passed by politicians who wanted to help corporations avoid paying taxes, and other parts were passed by politicians who wanted corporations to stop avoiding taxes. Both of these contradictory intentions are embodied in our current tax law. The spirit of the law is confused at best.