Under the federal law of the United States of America, tax evasionor tax fraud, is the purposeful illegal attempt of a taxpayer to evade payment of a tax imposed by the federal government. Conviction of tax evasion may result in fines and imprisonment.[1]
Tax evasion is separate from "tax avoidance", which is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage in order to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. Tax evasion is illegal while tax avoidance is legal.
In Gregory v. Helvering the US Supreme Court concurred with Judge Learned Hand's statement that: "Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." However, the court also ruled there was a duty not to illegally distort the tax code so as to evade paying one's legally required tax burden. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_in_the_United_States
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