Notice that his charitable giving began after he was aware the IRS was after him. There is evidence he committed criminal tax fraud, giving the money back or giving the money to charity doesn't ameliorate that. To make an analogy, suppose you robbed a bank and were about to get caught. If you gave back the money, and made some donations to charity, would that absolve you of criminal liability? This seems like an accurate analogy to me, with the "bank" being the US taxpayer in this case.

Here's another article that highlights how he became a major, high profile philanthropist only after it became clear the feds were on his case:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/09/smith-bro...

The charitable giving seems to clearly be part of an aggressive, multi-pronged, and ultimately successful strategy to avoid prosecution.

This is not evidence "the system is working", this is evidence that you can buy your way out of trouble.

> And, over the years, he has given away more money to charity than owed in taxes, making him very sympathetic to a jury.

It should be the voters‘ decision where the money goes to. Charities can also be a place to store money. If you control them you can also decide where the money is invested in. You just need to put a bit each year into some charitable cause where again you can spend that money buying products from wherever you want.