[vmception]

I think starting with that assumption is the primary disservice you are doing yourself.

Its important to actually understand taxes so that you don't eventually assume that the tax collector / revenue service is an adversary. They are exuberant collaborators.

Reading comprehension is key because even just imagining that rich people have an army of lawyers and accountants to figure it out is wrong. That takes way too much trust and those lawyers and accountants arent incentivized properly to figure things out. They have to be steered by the person that knows what they want and what ongoing compliance burdens they are willing to have, which requires already knowing or being part of a network of people that already have compliant systems set up and will tell. There are many more people that make wrong assumptions, to their detriment.

Listing “the techniques” aren't useful, reading the tax code is. Read IRS codes from the 400s section (tax deferral accounts) and the 500s section (tax-exempt entities) as a start. That will boost your own search queries by using more useful terms to search.

I sometimes find entire industries I was unaware of simply by being surprised by what the law says. The IRS has many parallel tax regimes that are different than the default one. You have to know to look behind door number 2 and door number 3, there are IRS agents sitting behind them bored and excitedly waiting to help you after you find them.

[tarr11]

“RTFTaxCode” doesn’t answer OP’s question.

What is the mechanism for paying $4000 and avoiding taxes? I assume some sort of trust? What are the details?

[vmception]

The IRS can grant tax exemption to any entity, even unincorporated ones that are a fiction of your imagination, for nearly free

Convincing them to is what costs money, because unincorporated sole proprietorships and unincorporated general partnerships aren’t convincing

RTFTaxCode

[tyre]

Better advice might be to talk to an accountant and/or tax attorney. It's not exactly reasonable to expect someone to know enough about the tax code just from reading it.

[vmception]

Their answer will be “it depends, what do you want to do”

You’ll say “I don’t want to pay taxes, I heard I can pay $4000 and not pay taxes”

They'll say what I said “it depends on what you want to do and what compliance burdens you want to deal with” along with “where did you hear that, my retainer is $10,000 and hourly rates are $700 and $300 for the junior”

and you still don’t know what you want to do

RTFTaxCode and find a service provider that specializes in that part of the tax code and then come back with specific queries about how those topics work

This is more analogous to saying “go to a medical school professor and your dentist” as they are both doctors and one might be licensed to practice, when neither of them can actually help you, and your dentist says “the eye doctor specializes in this topic” but you hadn't quite figured that out yet and you really have to go to your primary care doctor first who will still be confused about whether that’s the right recommendation for you because you can’t articulate what you really want to do

But since everyone that read this far is still here, and even more frustrated, I’ll point out that 401ks are a whole industry that is simply a reference to subsection 401(k) of the IRS’ 400 section and someone eventually noticed. There are other less used sections. 501(c)3 which you also may have heard of in passing are simply a reference to that subsection of 500 section of which there are many other less mentioned sections. All of which may be more interesting to your specific goal.