[stymaar]

> A company can value it's services as it chooses. If the work is performed for $1 or $5000 the government doesn't get a say in that.

Whether it you think it should or not depends on your personal preferences, but in practice the government does get a say in anything that it deems to be an undue way to reduce your taxes.

Barter would be much more common if it was a legal way of avoiding taxes.

[hattmall]

How would this reduce taxes? If I normally charge 20k for widget Z but only invoice company A 10k because they will see me widget B for 10k and we trade widgets, there is no taxable event. If company A was willing to pay the 20k instead obviously I would rather have that even if it creates 10k taxable income because profit.

Investor fraud is much more likely if neither company actually needs each other's widgets and it's just to pump revenue.