Legislation – The Surly Subgroup

Shu-Yi Oei

For those readers in search of some light summer reading, Leigh Osofsky (UNC Law) and I have been working on a paper on statutory drafting, entitled “Constituencies and Control in Statutory Drafting: Interviews with Government Tax Counsels.” We finally got around to posting it on SSRN, here.

In the paper, we report findings from interviews we conducted with government tax counsels who have participated in the tax legislative process, in which we asked questions about various aspects of drafting and creating tax legislation. In addition to reporting our findings, we also discuss the implications of our research for statutory interpretation, tax system design, and the legislative process.

For readers interested in legislation, tax drafting, statutory interpretation, tax shelters, and the political process, the paper is probably worth a look. Feel free to contact either of us with comments.

By: Leandra Lederman

Left to right: David Gamage, Leandra Lederman, Stephanie McMahon, Matt Metz (JD/MPA student)

On February 28, Prof. Stephanie McMahon from the University of Cincinnati College of Law gave a faculty workshop at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. She presented her paper titled “Tax as Part of a Broken Budget: Good Taxes are Good Cause Enough.” The thesis of the paper is that Treasury regulations are needed to effectuate the statutory tax laws consistent with Congress’s budgeting expectations, and that given the importance of the revenue raised by taxes to the functioning of the U.S. federal government, tax regulations should be excused from the Administrative Procedure Act’s pre-promulgation notice-and-comment process under the APA’s “good cause” exception. The paper thus tackles two arguments that Prof. Kristin Hickman has advanced in her work: post-promulgation notice and comment is insufficient for tax regulations, and there is no reason for “tax exceptionalism” in administrative procedures. Stephanie’s paper also contains a detailed explanation of the tax legislative process.

Given the importance of tax rulemaking and the difficulties the IRS has suffered with its well-known budget cuts, it is very nice to see a paper defending Treasury’s rulemaking strategy. Moreover, Stephanie’s argument is creative and thoughtful. However, the argument seems to depend on regulations being a critical part of the revenue-raising process, as the need for revenue is what Stephanie relies on to justify application of the good-cause exception. But are regulations needed for that? In explaining the budget process, Stephanie’s paper points out that regulations are not scored as part of that process. I think she agrees that tax statutes can raise revenue even in the absence of regulations. Instead, she argues that regulations help effectuate, albeit imperfectly, Congress’s scoring of the tax legislation. But some Internal Revenue Code sections do not expressly call for regulations. Others do, but some of the latter never actually see regulations promulgated. Yet, the tax laws are applied despite these “spurned delegations.” And given President Trump’s anti-regulation Presidential Executive Order on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs, we may see more tax statutes operating without regulations. Continue reading “Stephanie McMahon, “Tax as Part of a Broken Budget: Good Taxes are Good Cause Enough”” →