Reminiscences of a past president.

William Horne served as TEI's 1968-1969 International President. Mr. Horne, who was elected to Honorary Membership in 1983, attended the 2004 Annual Conference in New Orleans with his wife, Alice, and submitted the following reminiscences.

I first heard of TEI in 1953. As a young tax attorney on the staff of Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation, I was helping to draft the 1954 Internal Revenue Code. The Joint Committee staff would meet with various taxpayer groups to hear their recommendations for changes in the tax laws. In that capacity, I met several times with Ream Miller [TEI's 1963-1964 President] and other members of TEI's New York Chapter.

In 1957 I joined Olin Corporation (then Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation), first as Tax Counsel and later as Director of the Tax Department. I soon became affiliated with TEI's New York Chapter. Subsequently, I became chairman of TEI's Publications Committee. At the time, the principal publication of TEI was The Tax Executive, then a small quarterly that featured articles on changes in corporate tax law, written by tax lawyers and CPAs. For a period, we hired two Washington, D.C., tax lawyers to edit the publication. When difficulties arose with that arrangement, I served for a time as the de facto editor of the magazine.

In 1964 I left New York City and Olin to become Vice President-Taxes for Commercial Credit Company in Baltimore. I changed my TEI affiliation to the Baltimore-Washington Chapter and later became president of the chapter. At the...