Not paying your fair share isn't contrary to the spirit of tax law because there is no discernible spirit of the tax law. If the tax law says if you do Foo with shell company Bar through subsidiary Baz, then you get more money, legislators wrote that there for some reason because they wanted to encourage or discourage some behavior. I think it is neither reasonable nor moral to live in a society where corporations are "morally" required to second-guess the intentions of the writers of 10,000s of pages of tax law.
Judge Learned Hand was the most important judge never to sit on the Supreme Court. Here's what he has to say:
"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes... Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands."
Judge Learned Hand was the most important judge never to sit on the Supreme Court. Here's what he has to say:
"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes... Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands."