Tax Lawyers Will Write Tax Laws

[Doug]

I.R.S. Letting Tax Lawyers Write Rules

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.

“It’s not the fox guarding the hen house; it’s the fox designing the hen house,” said Paul C. Light, a professor of political science at New York University, who studies the federal work force.

...John D. Graham, the official appointed by President Bush to streamline the federal rule-making process and give private interests a greater voice, said even he was surprised by the I.R.S. plan.

...It is common for special interests of all types to be closely involved in drafting legislation and shaping rule making.

But in recent years there has been a quickening pace of moves to outsource the actual work of regulation, hiring contractors to write the rules. Now the I.R.S. is proposing that outside experts do it at no charge, opening up the possibility that some firms providing the draft would be working on behalf of an individual, business or association seeking to plant a favorable nuance in a rule.

See the rest here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

No different from the energy industry writing the environmental protection laws. It's this administration's "same ol' same ol'"

[Hogeye]

It's not just the current administration, Barbara. The fox guarding the henhouse thing has been going on from at least the WWI war boards, and has been the story of regulatory agencies ever since. It's the institution! It's not any particular administration.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Well, some of the earlier foxes have been very good about only taking what they need to support their families and leaving the rest - even protecting the chickens from other predators. The current group isn't guarding the chicken house, they built it in the first place to give them all kinds of secret entrances so they could kill off the entire flock, right down to the breeding stock, and throw whatever they don't eat out on the streets - spoiling them for anybody else - just to prove how wealthy they are.

[LaWood]

From the article:

"Why don’t we just privatize Congress and outsource the development of our laws?” he asked."

Now that pretty well cuts through the bs.

One main issue the article avoided: The House Ways and Means Committee is run by Charlie Rangel (D,NY), an avowed Bush enemy. He will oversee any new tax rules. Mr Rangel is the Congressman who advocated re upping the draft, a universal draft, not just military draft so that DeLay's children would have an opportunity to serve.
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[Hogeye]

Well, some of the earlier foxes have been very good about only taking what they need to support their families and leaving the rest - even protecting the chickens from other predators.

Of course, we don't have to choose between sustainable predation and unsustainable predation. Clearly no predation at all beats those hands down.

"Why don’t we just privatize [sic] Congress and outsource the development of our laws?" he asked.

I thought that's what they already did - outsource to think tanks and special interest groups.