Why I introduced the Tax Code Termination Act.

• Author: Largent, Steve

The Tax Code Termination Act, my proposal to sunset the tax code, has attracted a host of opponents since its introduction in January, Tax Executives Institute among them. President Clinton, Representative Charles Rangel, and others share the Institute's view of the Act and criticize it as partisan politics, a sound-byte gimmick, ultimately irresponsible, and risking paralyzing uncertainty in business planning. The purpose of this article is to explain my rationale in proposing the Act and let you as tax professionals judge for yourselves whether these pejorative labels are deserved. My hope is that you will see the merit in my case; even if you do not, you will have a better informed perspective from which to base your opposition.

For the past three years, there has been a great deal of talk about tax reform. The public, tax professionals, and politicians all are ready to agree that there are serious problems with the tax code, not the least of which is the way Congress is continuously changing it and adding tortuous complexity at every turn. I am convinced that the way we in Washington routinely do business with regard to the tax code is a recipe for disaster. I have developed this view not only from first-hand experience in Congress, but also through careful consideration of the analysis of tax and business professionals who see and deal with the effects of the tax laws every day.

TEI itself makes this case persuasively and was right on the mark in its assessment of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 saying it "rival[ed] the Tax Reform Act of 1986 for mind-numbing, eyes-glazing-over complexity" and was "hastily cobbled together from competing House, Senate, and Administration versions thereby guaranteeing that corrective legislation rather than interpretative guidance is necessary to clarify important provisions."

Unfortunately, effective corrective legislation is rarely seen and the complex tasks of interpretation are left to the IRS. It is a convenient way for Congress to please lobbyists and special interest groups with symbolic measures of little substance while leaving the IRS to bear taxpayer wrath as it struggles to make sense of the unintelligible and incomplete law it has been handed. It is no wonder that litigation is often required to resolve this mess at great loss to business productivity and wasteful diversion of critical resources. I do not need to dwell on this point. Tax executives are at the eye of the storm on a daily...