CRAFTING STRUCTURAL TAX LEGISLATION IN A HIGHLY POLARIZED CONGRESS

Yin focuses on the category of tax legislation, termed "structural" legislation, which is complex for a different reason. Structural legislation tries to protect the integrity and existing policy objective of various networks of tax rules that are part of the tax system. The legislation is complicated because the networks are intricate and any change may affect, and be affected by, all of the other rules in the network. He highlights some important changes in Congress and its staff principally over the last twenty-five to thirty years and examines amendments to subchapters S, K, and C of the Code as well as efforts to codify the federal statutes as positive law.