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A reader unfamiliar with the development of the Commission's tax proposals will undoubtedly find the numbering system and designation of source material perplexing.
The first submission to the Commission containing proposals now being considered was made by the Internal Revenue Service in a letter dated August 28, 1996 to the Commission from Joyce E. Bauchner. That submission is in the form of a letter with a series of attachments writing up proposals and suggesting statutory language. Unfortunately, the pages containing the proposals and suggested statutory language are not numbered. At the request of the Commission, the Internal Revenue Service resubmitted its positions on March 10, 1997 by letter to Professor Jack Williams, Chairman of the Advisory Committee, from Robert A. Miller. The proposals are the same proposals made in the August 28, 1996 letter but this letter contains a table of contents and all of the pages are numbered. We have referred to this second letter in this report as the "IRS Proposal" and page references are to pages in the IRS Proposal. Each of these documents is on file with the Commission.
The Department of Justice created its own Bankruptcy Working Group, which considered both tax and nontax issues. It submitted a legislative proposal to the Commission dated September 1996. This document is on file with the Commission. References in this report to the "Justice Proposal" are to that report, and page references are to pages in that report.
In connection with the September 1996 meeting of the Commission in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Commissioner Shepard prepared a list of discussion issues posing questions and containing editorial comments. References in this report to "Santa Fe Discussion Issues" are to Commissioner Shepard's memorandum. In all cases we have referenced these by page number and outline item number, because of the large number of proposals made by Commissioner Shepard in that memorandum.
Under procedures adopted by the Commission, when an item is ripe for a proposal by the Government Working Group the staff of the Commission writes up a proposal for discussion by the Working Group. Each of these is given a number and is designated, for example, Government Working Group Proposal No. 1, Government Working Group Proposal No. 10, Government Working Group Proposal No. 17. The Government Working Group has tentatively adopted some of these proposals but has yet to formally consider others of them at a meeting. Chairman Williamson has informed us that every tax issue is still open, regardless of previous tentative action by the Government Working Group. Accordingly, whenever there is a Government Working Group proposal covering an issue, we have cited it by number, regardless of whether the Commission has yet tentatively adopted it.
At the January meeting of the Commission, there was distributed to the public a substantial number of draft Government Working Group proposals, which, we are informed, were rough first drafts. None of these drafts has a number, and none of them has been discussed by the Commission. However, since they have been publicly disseminated, we have sometimes referred to them in the report as an "Unnumbered Government Working Group proposal." By so doing, we do not mean to imply that the Government Working Group has adopted them, either tentatively or finally, but each of them reflects some proposal of the IRS, Department of Justice or Commissioner Shepard.
As set forth in the Preface, on December 23, 1996 Mr. Case and Ms. Frasier promulgated the first matrix listing briefly describing each of the proposals then before the Commission, all coming at that time from either the IRS, the Department of Justice or Commissioner Shepard. Mr. Case and Ms. Frasier adopted a numbering system which in part reflected an attempt by them to prioritize all of the proposals. Those in a 100 track, for example, were high priority items and those in a 500 track were low priority items. As the Commission and the Advisory Committee have considered these proposals, they have kept Mr. Case's and Ms. Frasier's initial matrix numbers, with the exception that they have split multiple proposals into component parts (hence numbers like 414, 414A and 414B) and have added new track numbers for subsequent proposals, including the proposals herein. Although the numbering system has remained the same, there should be no implication that the original priority designations have any further meaning. The Commission has dropped some items with relatively "high" priority numbers and is actively considering some items with relatively "low" priority numbers because such consideration has been pressed upon the Commission by proponents of the various proposals.
This report makes no effort to prioritize items or to subdivide them into subject matter categories. Simply for convenience of those who have followed the Commission's work, we have put all of our comments in the numbering sequence of the December 23, 1996 matrix and its subsequent revisions.
Questions, comments or suggestions? kbercik@taxcounsellor.com
Last updated June 1, 1997