Maybe this is why the Swiss invaded.

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"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."
Matthew 5:9

The Swiss invaded whom?

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Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

Liechtenstein.

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"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."
Matthew 5:9

When has Switzerland ever invaded Liechtenstein?

__________________
Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

About a year ago.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Swiss in Liechtenstein 'invasion'

__________________
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."
Matthew 5:9

Man, by that means the US has invaded Austria several times each year in the recent past...

No there is a difference even, Switzerland did it accidentally, the US does it deliberately.

__________________
Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

No, I do not think I have gotten it wrong. However, I think you are confusing tax law with criminal law.

The purpose of tax law is to make the most revenue to the State with the least detrimental effects on society and the general economy. If many people evade taxes, you have to investigate the causes for this. These causes are often faulty tax laws.

The purpose of criminal law, on the other hand, is to keep people from doing certain things. The fact that some people break general criminal laws is not to be compared with the fact that some people evade taxes.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

I refer to my previous post.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

Well if its "faulty tax laws" that mostly lead to tax evasion I guess, correct tax laws would be those that only hit those who lack possibilities to evade them in large style. Those who can't afford accounts in Liechtenstein, those who do not act on an international basis, aka the lower and large parts of the middle class.

Lets give the wealthier people a free ticket, because otherwise one would create "faulty tax laws".

Is that what you mean?

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Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

I do not think you believe yourself that this is what I mean.

What I mean is that the tax laws should be easy, foreseeable, and based on decent and common moral grounds, so that the vast majority of people feel that they should pay all of their taxes.

You can never create a tax law that will make everyone pay their taxes. The wish to avoid taxes are, however, equally common among people of all differences in incomes. Tax evasions may be more elaborate if you earn a lot, but certainly not more common. Do not underestimate the low income earner's ingenuity in evading taxes - people are certainly not more stupid just because they happen to earn less money.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

Those people who evade taxes illegally, normally have the help of professionals on tax issues, or are well educated themselves on this issue. So while reducing red tape as far as reasonable is not a bad thing in itself, its not the reason why they evade taxes.

I can't see as well, how our taxes are not based on "common moral grounds".

You can't make a criminal code either that eliminates theft and robbery entirely. That does not make however theft or robbery any less of a crime, nor does it make the criminal code necessarily faulty.

Regarding you other argument. Yes of course tax evasion is not limited to wealthy people, but the majority of people from the middle class, employees of many sorts dont have much chance to evade the taxes. Workers can evade it by committing black labour, thats true. But thats not quite what I would base my existence on, nor do I support it either.

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Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"

The less you earn on tax evasion, the less interesting it is to evade taxes. It is as simple as that.

"Common moral grounds" was just one of the things I stated as a basis for a good tax law. Even though most of the tax law may be based on common moral grounds, I know of examples from my home country where certain tax statutes have not been.

You cannot compare tax law to criminal law in this way. These two parts of the law are fundamentally different from one another.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

Considering the current trend of "greed is cool" and the fact that you are not far away of a 0 tax in some tax havens, I guess the unless you approach towards zero with your own tax, tax evasion will always be a major problem.

Maybe there are examples, but I think they are pretty the exemption then.
Of course we are talking here about a rather subjective term as well.

Maybe they are fundamentally different. But the argument works nonetheless. I reject the turning around of the committer/victim scheme, as well as the argument that when you can not eliminate the bad actions, give in to them. When it is about tax evasion as well as when it is about the criminal code.

__________________
Vienna Central-Cementery:
"Half the size of Zürich, but twice the fun"