Stone Cold BS - Tax Patent

[NobleSavage]

Say you are an entrepreneurial CPA or tax attorney and read through all the 1000s of tax regulations and come up with loopholes to save your client from paying taxes. Well, if you do, you can patent your method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_patent

 

[Bomb#20]

Say you are an entrepreneurial CPA or tax attorney and read through all the 1000s of tax regulations and come up with loopholes to save your client from paying taxes. Well, if you do, you can patent your method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_patent

Darn right it's stone cold BS. Tax avoidance methods should be protected the traditional way: as trade secrets. The whole point of patenting is to get new technologies publicized and explained. For gods' sake we shouldn't be telling every Tom, Dick and Harry a way to avoid paying taxes! Then the IRS will notice the technique; they'll alert Congress; and it will be legislated out of existence*. All it does is screw over those of us clever enough to discover the method for ourselves.

(* Well, okay, no; but it will be legislated into being even more complicated to carry out, and then it's just work, work, work...)

 

[fromderinside]

When twisting the cat's tail at what point should one begin to worry about that tail coming off.

 

[Bronzeage]

I think a patent based on interpretation of the tax code would be a tenuous thing. The code could be changed at anytime and most likely changed because the patent revealed a weakness in the law. One would be better off just to keep the method a closely held secret and exploit it for as long as possible.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I thought we were suppose to work toward the eradication of disease. Instead we patent novel new approaches for exploiting it.