By Bill Boersma
The famous quote from Judge Learned Hand from a 1934 case articulating the principle that tax avoidance (legal) is permissible, as opposed to tax evasion (illegal).
“Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible… there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.”
Paying legally owed taxes is a part of our civic duty, but we don’t need to pay any more than necessary. Do you take deductions for business expenses, mortgage interest and charitable donations?
When it comes to estate taxes, many families have a choice. When you review the estate tax laws, they don’t really say that wealthy people have to pay estate taxes to the government. They effectively say that wealthy people, after using all the judicious and legally available methods to reduce taxation, have to use a portion of their wealth to support the social infrastructure of the country.
Here’s the question, if you had the choice between sending your unavoidable taxes to Washington to let them decide how to spend the money versus being able to decide yourself how the money should be put to use, which would you choose?
Charitable Opportunity
This is where charitable planning comes alive. There is so much untapped opportunity to integrate philanthropy into estate planning. It benefits communities. It can enhance family legacies. It often fosters generational civic development. It can benefit causes the government doesn’t have on its radar. It’s generally much more efficient and effective. It can reduce tax bills by tens or hundreds of million of dollars. And if you do it right, you’re not even going to disinherit your heirs, you’re simply reallocating where everything goes.
If you’re waffling on that decision, consider the following.
In 2025, the U.S. government spent approximately $7 trillion. That number is so large it’s almost impossible to comprehend, so we use comparisons to make it tangible. But the real point of these comparisons is not just scale. It’s perspective.
They illustrate a simple idea: even very large individual tax dollars, millions, even tens of millions, are almost imperceptible in the context of the federal budget.
In other words, the difference between what you pay in taxes and what you could legally redirect through planning has virtually no impact on government spending. But it can have an enormous impact on your family, your legacy, your community and the causes you care about.
So, as you look through the comparisons below, don’t just read them as interesting analogies. Read them as a reminder of proportion. Because once you understand how small your dollars are relative to the system, the real question becomes clearer:
Who should decide where those dollars go?
| If the federal budget is | Then $1,000,000 would be |
| $7,000,000,000,000 | 4.5 seconds of funding |
| A mile | A quarter of a millimeter |
| The weight of a a school bus | A paperclip |
| Traveling from New York to Los Angeles | Less than a single step |
| The age of the universe | Going back to the year 0 of our modern calendar |
| The life of an 80-year-old person | Listening to Bohemian Rhapsody |
| A book | Equal reading War and Peace, Les Miserables, the entire Harry Potter Series and 50 John Grisham novels combined… times a million |
| Mt. Everest | 4-point font this is 4-point font |
| All recorded human history | A single workday |
| If federal budget $ were | It would |
| Words | Keep the average person talking for 1.2 million years |
| Dollar bills | Wrap around the Earth 27,242 times |
| Seconds | Go back 222,000 years, |
| Minutes | Go back 13 million years, way before humans |
| Hours | Go back 800 million years, to nothing but single cell organisms |
| Days | Precede the Big Bang |
| Inches | Go past the sun |
Bill Boersma is a CLU, AEP and LIC and the founder and owner of OC Consulting Group. More information can be found at www.OC-LIC.com, www.BillBoersmaOnLifeInsurance.info or email at bill@oc-lic.com or call at 616-456-1000.
