MORALITY IS IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER
As the great Judge Learned hand famously said in a 1934 case, “Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible.” He is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes…over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does, rich or poor, and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not involuntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.
The United States Supreme Court reinforced this sentiment in affirming the following ruling: “The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or all together avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted.”
No one says you have to take advantage of every possible available legal planning technique if you don’t want to. You can also decide not to claim, say, a charitable deduction that is legally available to you and pay more tax than you are required to pay. But it is certainly not unethical simply to avail yourself of the laws as they were enacted by the government in order to minimize your expenditures on nursing home care.