[sneak]

> That defeats the purpose of the law. If they’re flagrantly violating the spirit and intent by barely passing the technical requirement, then the law should either A) be removed or B) retooled to address the loophole.

Yes, indeed. It completely defeats the purpose of the law, which is why the suggestion is akin to your A solution (that it should be invalidated/removed).

The law doesn't encode "purpose" or "spirit", the law only exists as written. When applying the law, and tax law especially, it's counterproductive to speculate as to "spirit" or "purpose", and best to focus just on what the law actually is, because that's the only part that really counts as "democratic". Intentions and ideals weren't voted on, the actual literal text of the law was.

[BeFlatXIII]

The fact that laws can't (or just don't) address purpose is a major shortcoming. IMO, the preamble to the US Constitution is its most important part. Defining purpose and scope gives later judges clear guidelines on how to handle future ambiguous cases and people who think they're clever for finding technical loopholes.