Secret Codes

One of the more amusing parts of my current working life is the variety of interesting people who think the US Tax Code is some kind of hidden game. They tend to think that if they can just use the secret password, or otherwise show they have the Inner Knowledge, that they'll at least never have to pay taxes ever again. (Some more extreme cases think that the government will give them millions of dollars.)

I was reminded of this by a news report from Friday; a district court has, once again, declared that another one of these dodges is invalid.

I know everybody has their own rules for life, and that some people are just stupider than others. (Though you do have to at least have a certain kind of low cunning to attempt tax-dodge schemes; I may call these people dumb, but they're reasonably smart.) But, for me, the most important rule in life has always been this: anything that looks too good to be true is.

The corollary, of course, is that anything that looks too bad to be true is happening sooner than you expect.