Introduction

• Author: W. Patrick Cantrell
• Pages: xi-xii

xi

IntroduCtIon

My reason for writing this book has to do with perceived necessity. I was

unaware of a practical reference book delineating rules for dealing with real-

life problems faced by a typical practitioner whose clients have confronted

otherwise unsolvable IRS problems. The IRS is a huge bureaucracy with

approximately one hundred thousand employees across the United States and

in foreign countries. The powers of these employees rival those of the most

despotic governments in history. The disparity of power between IRS employ-

ees and the typical taxpayer is my raison d’être.

This book is intended as a reference manual to be used by the casual

practitioner of tax procedure as well as by serious scholars. Unlike casebooks

used in the curricu la of most law schools, this publication is much more of a

nuts-and-bolts approach to solving specific problems that arise in everyday

tax practice. One of the unique features I have employed is the injection of

tricks and techn iques that go well beyond the boundaries of rigid procedural

rules. Unfortunately, this requires the injection of my own personal biases and

sometimes irreverent opinions, which may differ from those of mainstream

practitioners of this often frustrating art.

The incredible complexity of the Internal Revenue Code, which has

evolved over the past hundred years, has spawned an industry comprising

tax lawyers and accountants who deal primarily with the labyrinthine sub-

stantive tax rules. Simplicity is a concept foreign to the drafters of federal tax

law. In any event, the focus of practitioners on substantive tax rules, while

well understood, is often misplaced. What you will not find in this book are

any substantive tax law rules. Instead, I deal primarily with Internal Revenue

Code sections 6000 to 9000. It is my steadfast belief that without a thorough

knowledge of these procedures, the most learned tax practitioner will encoun-

ter nothing but frustration.

If there is a moral higher ground for the tax professional, it is undoubtedly

the desire to change the tax structu re systemically. Those of us who lack the

courage or inclination to do that are relegated to the mundane world of dealing

with the tax system as we find it—and not as it ought to be. I am frequently

asked, “Wouldn’t it be a much fairer tax system if only . . . ?” My answer is

always the same: “Yes, of course, but the chances of that happening, given the