I dunno about south of the border, but the cops up here are too busy to be harassing people for sport. Usually, if they're harassing you, it's cuz they believe you've done something they don't like and they want to let you know it.
Quite seriously tho, I've found one of the best ways to learn about the law is by downloading and reading court cases. In the USA, as in Canada, court cases become a matter of public record and the transcript of most court cases is freely available online.
For example, if you want to learn about good tax loopholes, you might go into your US government's tax court and use the search tool to search for "accountant" or "lawyer". That will give you all the cases where the character strings "accountant" or "lawyer" appear, and a goodly number of those will be where accountants or lawyers got caught cheating on their tax returns. Obviously, these guys are going to do that the smartest way they know how, and if the judge agrees that the way they structured their financial transactions avoids the black letter of the law, then the amount in dispute is not subject to tax under the law as written.
So, for example, I'd start at this web site: w w w.ustaxcourt.gov
United States Tax Court: Home
and then click on the "Opinions Search" link along the top of the web page which will take you here:
Today's Opinions - United States Tax Court
And then, click on the blue "Help" link in the top right corner of the Search dialogue box, and read the Help text so that you fully understand all of the operators and wildcards and how to use them together to most effectively use the Search tool.
For example, if you type **/**/09 into the search date area and "accountant" into the text search area to find all tax court cases in 2009 where the word "accountant" appears, one of the cases will be that of Reynard and Joyce Campbell:
Reynard and Joyce M. Campbell (1 Hit) View Highlighted Hits
[Page 1] Campbell is a certified public accountant (C.P.A.), and Joyce
I haven't tried it, but you might try typing **/**/** into the date search area and the character string "tax loophole" into the text search area, and see if any tax court judge ever used that word in an opinion. Certainly, that's the terminology the judge would use to describe a way of avoiding the tax law.
And, of course, Canadian legal eagles can do the same thing by going to the Tax Court of Canada web site at:
Tax Court of Canada - (Access to judgments)
I've found some excellent information on the Canadian Tax Court decisions. For example, did you know that if a COMPANY gives a benefit to an individual, the only way that the benefit can be considered a TAXABLE benefit is if either:
A.) the individual is a shareholder of the company, or
B.) the individual is a person on whom a shareholder of the company WANTED to bestow a benefit.
So, for example, if you own a corporation, and that corporation owns an apartment block, and you're getting too old to look after it yourself, and you want to sell it to your nephew, you could arrange to sell the shares of the corporation to him and include a caveat in the sales agreement saying that you are entitled to live rent free in one apartment in that apartment block for the rest of your life.
In that case, even if the tax man hates your guts, the free rent you're getting isn't taxable in your hands, and your nephew doesn't have to pay tax on the income he's giving up either.
You see, as soon as you sell the shares of the building, you're no longer a shareholder in the company that owns the apartment block, so you don't fall under part A.
And since you're receiving that benefit as a result of the sales agreement, and not because your nephew wants to give you an apartment rent free, you don't fall under part B either.
And, because a caveat attaches to the property and not the agreement, then you have the right to live rent free in that apartment even if your nephew sells the building to someone else. Obviously the selling price of the building would be affected by that caveat. No one wants to buy a freeloader. But, by the same token, if after looking after a building for 30 years, you want to sell it to someone much younger, then the combination of experience and acquired skills and tools on one hand, and the enthusiasm and endless enery on the other is just what you need to start renovating a second apartment block.
So, the free apartment is a benefit you can receive without having to pay tax on the value you're receiving. And, no where in the Canadian Income Tax Act does it require a company or individual to pay tax on income they DIDN'T receive.