Why Tax Planning Without Considering Societal Interests is Unfounded

Abstract

The present paper is a commentary on the article “The relationship between Taxation, Accounting and Legal Forms”, which has already been published in AEL: A Convivium. The article deals with Controlled Foreign Corporation rules (CFC rules) from a profit-seeking perspective. It develops tax schemes and assumes them to be adequate means to avoiding the Austrian or German CFC rules. This commentary argues that from the perspective of a critical rationalist methodology, the topic and the findings of the article need to be viewed with some reservation. A substantial objection applies to the article’s statement that the developed tax schemes are adequate to achieve the end of optimising the effective tax rate. However, there is the even more substantial objection that neither the developed tax schemes nor the end of optimising the effective tax rate without taking the interests of society systematically into account are legitimate. However, the article fails to address the major societal issue of how to reduce tax avoidance.