You'll FLIP your lid

TomPaine has a good article on the emergence of new, increasingly complex tax dodges.

How is it possible that individual Americans shoulder a disproportionately large part of the overall tax burden while the portion paid by corporations is at its second lowest level in U.S. history? Complexity, plain and simple. By cooking up tax shelter concoctions that are difficult to understand, Michigan Senator Carl Levin says, corporations are able to "escape scrutiny and public ire." Exact calculations of how much corporate tax shelters cost the U.S. Treasury are hard to come by, but estimates put the loss of tax revenue as high as $18 billion a year.

Though corporations trying to avoid taxes is an old story, what is new is the rise of so-called "tax products" - essentially schemes designed by morally-challenged tax professionals who then peddle them aggressively to corporations looking for an extra tax savings boost.

Check it out if you want to get OPIS'ed off.