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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (53615)	11/18/2006 6:47:27 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

"Rearranging my affairs in an illegal way to evade taxes can result in jail time, and it should." Often there is little ethical difference between a legal arrangement and an illegal one. Of course, by definition the one is ethical and the other is not but there may be little or no practical difference other than in getting caught. For instance, it is legal or not to contribute to certain trusts in Canada. One is called the Humanitarian Trust Fund. You donate 20,000 dollars or so to a fund which then buys drugs for third world problems such as HIV. The drug values are appraised by professional appraisers and that then becomes a charitable donation valued at several times the actual cash output. Is it ethical? Is it legal? Until the loop is closed it is probably legal and hence "ethical". Is the person who can afford this sort of chicanery more "ethical" than someone who gets a little too hopeful on what is a rental expense over a ten dollar snow shovel?