In The Room Where It Happens, It Doesn't Always Happen Exactly Right

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Law Firm: Caplin & Drysdale
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Tax, Insolvency/Bankruptcy/Re-structuring, Financial Restructuring, Court Procedure, Tax Authorities
• Author: Ms Leila Carney and Christopher Rizek
• Published date: 22 May 2023

Today we continue our series highlighting the recent publication of the Pittsburgh Tax Review edition focusing on the Restructuring & Reform Act of 1998 a quarter century after enactment. Guest bloggers Leila Carney and Chris Rizek wrote one of the articles as well as today's post. Both practice with Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, DC. Leila focuses on tax disputes and tax litigation. Like me, she has her undergraduate degree from William and Mary. Chris was a trial attorney in the Tax Division of the Department of Justice early in his career. His service as Associate Tax Legislative Counsel with the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Legislative Counsel in the mid to late 1990s provides the background for today's post and offered me the first opportunity to meet him. In that meeting, which took place in another of the rooms where it happened, he discussed the 25 legislative proposals that Chris Sterner and I had drafted. I remember Chris (Rizek) rejected one of the proposals which sought to codify the reach of the federal tax lien to tenancy by the entireties property because he thought it was an issue for the courts to decide. His rejection of that proposal seemed prescient when the Supreme Court held the federal tax lien reached T by E property a few years later in United States v. Craft, 535 U.S. 274 (2002). His practice focuses on tax disputes and tax litigation. He is well known in the tax procedure community and an early guest blogger for PT.

This post was originally posted on May 3rd, but has been updated on May 8th to correct a reference in the original post that had identified the jurisdictional parenthetical in Section 6015(e)(1)(A) as originating in Conference; the House had inserted that provision in its earlier proposed legislation.

Keith

Keith Fogg's article in the Pittsburgh Tax Review's recent issue, The IRS Restructuring and Reform Act ["RRA"] Twenty-Five Years Later,Vol. 20, No. 1 (2022), is entitled "In the Rooms Where it Happened," and several authors of posts on this blog have likewise discussed how exciting, and even fun, it can be to be involved in the legislative or regulatory decision-making process. So, since we're on that subject, I have a story to relate as well. The very last items resolved in the conference held to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the RRA were the competing provisions for "innocent spouse" reform. I was in the room(s) where that happened, and here's how it happened.

A bit of background first...