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What Is Wrong With Tax Evasion?, Stuart Green
What Is Wrong With Tax Evasion?, Stuart Green
Stuart Green
This talk, originally delivered at a University of Houston symposium on tax crimes, asks why the norms that underlie our laws against tax evasion are so seemingly unstable. Ten reasons are offered: (1) tax evasion is difficult to distinguish from tax avoidance, (2) the conduct that underlies the crime of tax evasion is complex, (3) choate and inchoate liability are conflated, (4) a heightened mens rea of "willfulness" is required, (5) the level of enforcement is low, (6) enforcement practices are arbitrary and uneven, (7) criminal and civil violations are not clearly distinguished, (8) there is a sense that "everyone …