I.R.S. Practice of Seeking Tax Lawyer Assistance Questioned

In David Cay Johnston, I.R.S. Letting Tax Lawyers Write Rules, NY Times, March 9, 2007, this policy is questioned.  Here are a few excerpts:

The Internal Revenue Service is asking tax lawyers and accountants who create tax shelters and exploit loopholes to take the lead in writing some of its new tax rules.

The pilot project represents a further expansion of the increasingly common federal government practice of asking outsiders to do more of its work, prompting academics and other critics to complain that the government is going too far.

They worry that having private lawyers and accountants draft tax rules could allow them to subtly skew them in favor of their clients. * * *

The I.R.S. staff has been cut by a fifth in the last decade, even as Congress has made the tax code vastly more complex. The agency, in a formal notice, said it lacked the resources to issue as much guidance as taxpayers are seeking.

Rule making is the heart of what Washington does, though it gets little news coverage. Once a bill becomes law it must be carried out through rules that range from advice memoranda to formal regulations, which are printed in the Federal Register. At that point, they are subject to public comment and at times public hearings before being revised and then formally adopted as the way the executive branch will carry out the new law.