No man in this country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so as to arrange his legal relations to his business or to his property, so as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel into his stores.
The Inland Revenue is not slow - and quite rightly - to take every advantage which is open to it under the taxing statutes for the purpose of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is, in like manner, entitled to be astute to prevent, as far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Revenue.
Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services v IRC (1929) 14 TC 754 at 763 per Clyde LP