Addendum to the Regulations Problem (with Erwin N. Griswold)

Abstract

For the past year, eminent tax lawyers have been batting back and forth the problem of the binding effect of regulations issued by the Treasury to interpret or supplement tax legislation.' Most of the fun has come in mauling the so-called" reenactment" rule, which is said to be in danger of coming to mean that when Congress has reenacted a revenue act, the regulations under the former act acquire the" force of law" as if Congress had specifically written them into the statute. So extensive has been the recent writing in this field that the latest and best, Professor Griswold's Summary of the Regulations Problem, commences with an apology for further comment. Under the circumstances, still another word on the subject would seem superfluous. Nevertheless, I do have an excuse to offer. The other writers on the subject have been tax lawyers, who have written about the problem as primarily one in tax administration; 4 there is still need to ask whether the reenactment rule should be abolished in other fields of administration.