[hueving]

Then change the tax laws. It's silly to suggest that they should pay more to the government than is legally required. Actual tax evasion comes with pretty serious penalties, so people with loads of money tend to be pretty prudent when ensuring what they are doing with their taxes is legal.

[Inconel]

I agree that changing tax law would be the best remedy but I'm not entirely sure if tax "avoidance" on a massive scale doesn't have some ethical considerations. When the people engaging in said avoidance have an outsized influence on the way tax laws are set up and interpreted relative to working/middle class citizens, I can certainly understand why some might attach an ethical consideration to such schemes. Just to be clear, this is an issue that I myself still haven't come to a conclusion on, but at the very least I can see both sides of the argument. I don't necessarily think it's "silly", perhaps naive or ignorant on my part though.

With regards to your second point, I'm not sure if I agree with your statement that "people with loads of money tend to be pretty prudent when ensuring what they are doing with their taxes is legal". I mean, I'm sure this is the case for many people but it seems that illegal tax evasion is a pretty serious global problem so clearly there are plenty of people who's main concern seems to be not getting caught rather than following the law. I also don't have a tremendous amount of faith that the US or other governments can adequately tackle the problem of enforcement at this time. Again, I could very well be wrong on all counts.

Mr. Soros in particular is problematic to me since he has a prior conviction for insider trading and there have been allegations surrounding his Quantum funds for many years. The secrecy and opaqueness with which he runs his investment vehicles certainly seems somewhat antithetical to an "open society", I wonder if the irony is lost on Mr. Soros.

[hueving]

>I agree that changing tax law would be the best remedy but I'm not entirely sure if tax "avoidance" on a massive scale doesn't have some ethical considerations.

Do you suggest that people are unethical if they choose to take a mortgage interest deduction or deduct business expenses? How about people that rollover their retirement accounts?

I disagree with the tax benefits granted to homeowners and parents. However, it is the current law and I don't rant that people are being unethical by limiting their payment to the government under the law that exists. I would consider them fiscally irresponsible to do otherwise.

[Inconel]

While I too disagree with some of the tax benefits afforded to homeowners, particularly with regard to long time homeowners here in CA, no, I would not consider that unethical. For one, there are probably more homeowners and parents than billionaires, so if they vote to give themselves certain tax breaks, even if I happen to disagree with them, I don't view it as a "corruption" of democracy. I'm sorry for using the word "corruption", it might not really be appropriate but I'm tired and couldn't think of a better term. At the very least, politicians seem to be pretty straightforward regarding tax breaks for homeowners, the process of taxation and financial lawmaking seems significantly more opaque to me. I view tax avoidance on the scale of hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars, differently than tax avoidance on a much smaller scale, even if both are perfectly legal. I admit this may not be a very good way of looking at things but I can't help but feel that scale is important here.

I hope my posts didn't come off as a "rant", that was not my intention and I deliberately tried to make sure to point out that I'm not concrete in some of these views. I like coming to HN largely because ideas can be challenged in a respectful manner, I apologize if my posts came off as rants.