The annual day of reckoning with IRS is upon us. As Americans at large prepare for their yearly...well, lets call it hug...from the taxman, Forbes has a few tips on how wealthy individuals and multinational companies have, in the past, managed to ease the squeeze:

Where the rich turn to protect their wealth

By Sophia Banay

April 14, 2005

Was 2004 good for you? Chances are it was. The economy was the strongest it had been in years — the growth rate was 4.4 percent, salaries edged up and the IPO market revived. If you were a chief executive, it was even better. In 2004 CEO bonuses rose 46.4 percent and the median CEO bonus stood at $1.14 million, according to a study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

Of course, this is the only time of year when you might find yourself wishing that maybe you had left a little more money on the table. That, maybe, a couple of losses wouldn't have been so bad to offset your gains after all. Because tomorrow is the Ides of April — the day when all that lovely money you made lies vulnerable and unprotected from the clutches of the Internal Revenue Service, no matter how hard you may try to shelter it.

And that is becoming harder to do these days, as your accountant has no doubt been explaining to you. It's no longer possible to avoid the tax man by unloading those assets in a hidden offshore fund or an unnumbered account in the Caymans. As the IRS has made efforts to become “nicer,” like Madame Lafarge, it has also been steadily knitting up all those loopholes while the poor taxpayers trundle off to the tax guillotine....

For more on corporate tax tactics, and a wistful look at tax havens past, click over to MSNBC for the rest of the Forbes piece.

-- MDT