Loading...
The Morphogenesis of Subchapter C: An Essay in Statutory Evolution and Reform
Clark, Robert
Clark, Robert
Abstract
By anyone's reckoning, the law concerning the federal income taxation of corporations and security holders-essentially, subchapter C of the Internal Revenue Code,' together with its accompanying regulations2 and the accumulated body of revenue rulings and case law3-is complex. Quite surprisingly for a corpus of rules that is an artificial construct of highly self-conscious human intellects, rather than an attempt to rationalize preexisting social relations, the law exhibits an intricacy approaching that of living systems. The analogy suggests a question. Did the corporate tax law, like a mature organism, have its major traits determined by a set of genes fixed in its infancy, or did it grow in a passive, mechanistic way, its important parts constantly shaped and reshaped in response to the shifting pressures of a changing environment?