Finance Guide

The term tax avoidance is usually used to describe the practice of tax-payers using legitimate means to pay less of their money in tax than they would otherwise have to. It does not usually encompass behaviour which avoids the paying of taxes by means outwith the law, which is more often referred to as tax evasion.

Tax avoidance is extremely widespread, particularly among the wealthy. It is, of course, perfectly natural for tax-payers to wish to keep as much of their own money as possible and to seek out ways to do it. In most cases, tax avoidance will be facilitated by a professional accountant. Few ordinary tax-payers have the expert knowledge required to understand the intricacies of the tax system so well that they can make judgements about the best ways to avoid paying tax. Successful tax avoidance is usually accomplished through figuring out loopholes in the tax system and exploiting them so as to minimize the tax burden. The details of what can be done to avoid taxes naturally vary greatly from one country to another, since each country has its own separate tax system with unique features of its own.

Tax avoidance is not simply a personal thing but can also be performed by corporations.