I’d expect very little overlap between those talent pools.
More computer programmers might moonlight as SEO gurus, if search engines didn't put up at least a token amount of resistance against scummy low-effort SEO tactics.
Fewer tax avoidance accountants would still be tax avoidance accountants, if we made a bigger effort to prevent it. (And that doesn't mean accountants would have to be programmers instead, there are many other kinds of talent)
But even for programmers, plenty of people make the decision to go into programming or medicine or law because they are well paid and respected careers. And interests in secondary school and university are influenced by parents, teachers and the culture promoting certain directions. Kids these days are bombarded by STEM everything.
I don't really do anything besides play with it, my taxes are very simple and boring, but it's been a fun project to play around with.
My naive assumption is that sophisticated analysis will return the same few well-known recommendations almost all the time -- the taxation variant of eating properly, sleeping regularly, and getting appropriate exercise.
The scope of what I'm working on is trying to build strategies for holding and selling stock as well in order to minimize taxes. I've only ever used it on paper trades.
Minimization is just taking advantage of the tax loopholes and strategies that are within bounds. Avoidance is lying or ignoring.
Yes it’s possible to minimize your taxes down to zero legally in many cases, but you’ll pay a good percentage of that savings to accounts and lawyers for managing that structure.
Avoidance and “minimisation” are the same thing, evasion is a crime.
Your point, that people can't just switch careers willy nilly, actually reinforces the point of the article -- that incentivizing accounting games actually reduces time spent on impactful pursuits in the long run.
I worked in crypto sector which paid really well in some cases... Though compensation had little to do with talent and more to do with focus on political bs and alignment with the needs of corrupt authorities. Some could argue there was an inverse correlation between talent and compensation as the most corrupt people are often that way because they lack talent to begin with.
I've observed similar dynamics in big tech corporations, unfortunately. People are promoted on the basis of their incompetence and capacity for self-delusion as it creates the necessary blind-spots which allow organizations to occasionally poke their toes beyond red lines to reap massive profits.
Stupidity and incompetence are useful attributes within corporations because they instill a feeling of insecurity in the minds of the affected employees and this makes them highly loyal and controllable. Sometimes I think one of the main reasons these companies hire actual intelligent people is to make the incompetent people feel insecure 'imposter syndrome' and increase their degree of loyalty/compliance. They don't actually need intelligent people to run things because they have monopolies and the big profits are to be reaped in maintaining their monopolies which is achieved via dirty politics; not achieved via innovation.
I think many intelligent people have observed this reality in companies they worked for. We've seen the HR manager who will bend over backwards to deny reality to align with the goals of management.