Comment by mikeyouse

The point people are making (to mostly deaf ears) is that many tax "avoidance" strategies are just unprosecuted tax evasion strategies. If you claim deductions you don't qualify for, that's obviously just tax evasion, but most taxpayers will get away with it. Does their lack of a conviction mean they're just tax avoiding? Of course not.. so when some company dreams up a scheme where the 'owner' of a laptop changes 6 times to various subsidiaries in countries that laptop has never entered, is that just sophisticated tax avoidance? Or is the obviously illegal scheme tax evasion? (Illegal in the sense that almost every jurisdiction has laws that will pierce transactions that only occur to minimize taxes).