10 Ways To Avoid Taxes

Schemes for wealthy and very wealthy people use to avoid taxes.

Many of them basically end reclassifying money as collateral, loans, or investments with different tax status as income. This allows enormous amounts of money to sit around untaxed and held onto or passed down to heirs.

Look, I don't begrudge anyone earning a lot of money and being successful. This is freaking America! We should celebrate such things. But what the financial collapse shined a light on is that so many of this "successful" people are financial money shifters who are simply gaming systems to enrich themselves without contributing to the economy. Financial gaming is not adding to the economy - it is a wealth transfer - no different in principle than welfare (taking from one person and giving to another). And yet we shield so much of this type of activity from tax (probably why it is done in the first place). When you dig into this, it makes one want to puke. And it seems like Madoff is less an aberration than a symbol.