The Morphogenesis of Subchapter C: An Essay in Statutory Evolution and Reform

摘要

By anyone\u27s reckoning, the law concerning the federal income taxationof corporations and security holders-essentially, subchapter C ofthe Internal Revenue Code,\u27 together with its accompanying regulations2and the accumulated body of revenue rulings and case law3-iscomplex. Quite surprisingly for a corpus of rules that is an artificialconstruct of highly self-conscious human intellects, rather than anattempt to rationalize preexisting social relations, the law exhibits anintricacy approaching that of living systems. The analogy suggests aquestion. Did the corporate tax law, like a mature organism, have itsmajor traits determined by a set of genes fixed in its infancy, or did itgrow in a passive, mechanistic way, its important parts constantlyshaped and reshaped in response to the shifting pressures of a changingenvironment?