> The actual problem is that no part of the government wants to be the one to tell you if something is legal, because whoever actually makes the decision takes the blame for the consequences one way or the other.
One really interesting thing I found about moving out of the US is that this is not always the case around the world. At a startup in the Netherlands we were discussing whether or not we could use a particular tax deduction in a particular way. The wording was really unclear. A colleague called the tax authority, and the person on the line agreed that the wording was not clear. They put us on hold, discussed, and came back that they thought we could, indeed, do what we wanted to do. Upon asking they sent us a letter clarifying.
I could not imagine this ever happening when dealing with the IRS.
> I could not imagine this ever happening when dealing with the IRS.
Have you tried? I haven’t tried it with the IRS, but I have tried asking my states permitting and planning department about the legality of various rental schemes for a property (that I didn’t own) and they were happy to look up the permits and tell me that indeed what I was asking about was not legal for that property. And further they let me know that tons of people do it anyway and that they don’t really check, but it’s a risk.
One really interesting thing I found about moving out of the US is that this is not always the case around the world. At a startup in the Netherlands we were discussing whether or not we could use a particular tax deduction in a particular way. The wording was really unclear. A colleague called the tax authority, and the person on the line agreed that the wording was not clear. They put us on hold, discussed, and came back that they thought we could, indeed, do what we wanted to do. Upon asking they sent us a letter clarifying.
I could not imagine this ever happening when dealing with the IRS.