Robert H. Jackson and the enforcement of the federal tax laws.

• Author: O'Connor, Eileen J.

"He is blind to coming events, who fails to see ahead a heavy and growing tax burden." (1) So said Robert H. Jackson in 1934, while serving as Assistant General Counsel for the Treasury Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue. Jackson recognized the tendency of government to indulge in "a constant expansion of functions and a tax rate that, whatever the promises, shows a steady upward curve." (2) The steps that he took to ensure fairness and uniformity in the enforcement of federal tax laws established an enduring legacy.

Rather than "awaiting more perfect tax laws," (3) Justice Jackson spent much of his six years in the Executive Branch--as Assistant General Counsel for the Bureau of Internal Revenue; Assistant Attorney General, first for the Justice Department's Tax Division and then for its Antitrust Division; Solicitor General; and then Attorney General of the United States--advocating and implementing the consolidation, in the Justice Department's Tax Division, of responsibility for the enforcement of the internal revenue laws.

Although he served as the government's chief tax lawyer, Justice Jackson "neither began nor ended his government service with any special degree of technical tax expertise." (4) His commitment to tax administration arose not from a deep and abiding interest in the philosophical underpinnings of tax policy, but rather to his determination to see that the tax laws were enforced uniformly and fairly.

Justice Jackson's quest for fairness and uniformity in tax administration is evident in several themes that recur in his remarks about tax and other areas of law enforcement: the duty "to stop the holes poked in the law by clever lawyers in aid of powerful clients"; the need "to guard against favoritism or advantage"; and the recognition that "the income tax law is citizen-administered in its first instance" insofar as it depends upon citizens' voluntary compliance with "a technical law which few have read, and voluminous regulations known to fewer," as a result of which "errors will be made, differences of opinion will arise." (5)

"TO STOP HOLES POKED IN THE LAW"

In accepting an appointment to the Bureau of Revenue in 1934, Jackson took a more than 66% pay cut. (6) But he did not hesitate, because the position gave him the opportunity to remedy "practices [that] had become in some respects lax during the preceding administration." (7) The complexity of the tax code, Jackson recognized, tempts "dishonest or tricky" tax...