The Federal Tax System of the United States: A Survey of Law and Administration

FEDERAL TAXES are now imposed by an internal revenue code which embodies all Federal taxing laws except those relating to customs duties. Prior to 1939 tax laws were very numerous. Some repealed all or parts of others; some expressly modified portions of others; some implicitly changed or repealed others. As a consequence, to ascertain the law on a given question required research that at best was burdensome and time-consuming, and at worst generated uncertainties, doubts about interpretation, and conflicting provisions. This lack of integration and coherence fostered litigation and was an impediment to orderly administration. In 1939 the various taxing laws were consolidated and re-enacted as the Internal Revenue Code, and since then, all new revenue laws and repeal or modification of ones already existing have normally been enacted as amendments to it.^*

The Internal Revenue Service,^† the largest agency of the Treasury Department, collects the taxes imposed by the Code. In addition to its national headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Service operates through nine regional offices, sixty-four district offices, and over twelve hundred suboffices located throughout the country. At the end of 1951 its employees numbered 57,795; in 1953, about 55,000. Of the appropriation of $748,208,222 for operation of the Treasury Department in 1951, $246,820,000 was

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