read page 2 of the article: Page 2 of 2 --A Las Vegas construction business owner was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in 2009 for tax fraud and evasion, which included a payroll scam in which he paid workers with silver and gold coins, allowed them to immediately trade them in for paper dollars, but only withheld taxes for the total face value of the coins, according to the IRS and several local news reports. Shapiro said his proposal is nothing like the Nevada case. The Las Vegas business owner “was trying to defraud the government out of the money. That’s where he went wrong,’’ Shapiro said. “Tax evasion, that’s when you don’t report earnings. Tax avoidance is just like when you take a deduction on your house, you’re trying to avoid taxes, you’re trying to pay less taxes, and there’s nothing in the tax code that says that you have to arrange your income to increase how much you pay in taxes.’’ (though the explanation is not great)