Year: 1999
Type: article
Abstract: The tax law is the paradigmatic system of Over thirteen large black volumes filled with tax rules sit on my shelf. Yet over the last several years, the purely rule-oriented approach to the tax law has begun to be perceived as a failure. The reason is that taxpayers have been able to manipulate the rules endlessly to produce results clearly not intended by the drafters. Manipulation of this sort is inefficient, loses revenue, and demoralizes others. To respond, lawmakers and regulators have shifted the tax system toward standards, primarily by adopting what are known as rules. A typical anti-abuse rule allows the government (and only the goverrnment) to override the literal words of a statute or regulation. Instead, the government may require a reasonable tax result if the taxpayer enters into or structures a transaction with a principal purpose of reducing tax liabilities in a manner contrary to the purposes of the statute or regulation, even if the transaction otherwise literally complies with the rules.'
DOI: 10.2307/1600430
Author: David A. Weisbach
Institution: University of Chicago
Language: English
Topic: Taxation and Legal Issues
Subfield: Accounting
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W560891648