I dealt with this one awhile back. The discovery turned out to be that it is not possible to disable taint-checks on the path (@INC) post version 5.26; however, it is possible to appease taint, simply by setting the path. This is a step that was not required in earlier versions, but which is no longer optional as a result of taint. So while some may claim taint is not in use if not invoked, this is simply not the whole truth.

See more on that here: Proper and acceptable use of backticks in a modern Perl script.