No one likes paying taxes. That’s one of the few truths which has been around for as many thousands of years as taxes have ever existed. I’m no different, and in preparation for a prospectively giant financial event, I’ve been eager to try to find any tricks, workarounds, or ideas (short of outright fraud) to help reduce the tax consequences to the Knight household. I bought every book on Amazon that was highly-rated and addressed this topic.
Having received them and gone through them all, I shall simply offer these three words: They. All. Sucked. I mean, honest to God, I’ve been a professional writer since 1982, and I’ve got a decent eye for quality writing, and my Lord, not only were they utterly amateurish, but I didn’t garner a single great idea or lesson from any of them.
Plenty of the ideas were just plain stupid or smart-alecky, such as (and I’m not making these up) “Don’t Live in California” (that was an entire chapter), “Die!” (that was another), and plenty of suggestions how to give away money to charity (which is all well and good, but not paying taxes on money that I am GIVING AWAY doesn’t really solve any problems, does it?)
I returned every one of them, and I guess we’ll just have to rely on the professional financial advisors we’ve hired. The fact is that books on how to avoid taxes are as useful as books on how to get rich in the stock market. They’re worthless.
