The tax SYSTEM consists of far more than the IRC. If you don't believe that, try to defend yourself in tax court by saying that you followed the IRC strictly, but ignored treasury dept rulings and IRS regs. It won't wash. Anyone who does fairly sophisticated tax returns will tell you that they have to reference more than just the IRC to make sure that they are in compliance.
If you want to quibble over whether CCH's commentaries should be included or not, I don't have strong feelings either way. My guess is that they comprise a small part of the 60,000 pps that they calculate anyway. It really isn't worth taking the time to research to me.
The point of all this is that the rapid growth in complexity, which is getting worse as the years go by, is strong evidence that the notion of defining taxable income in a stable and consistent manner, which is what the change to an income tax was based on in 1913, is simply not achievable. The longer we wait to acknowledge the obvious, the more difficult the adjustment is going to be.
Standard Federal Tax Reporter includes the following looseleaf binders:
- Index - includes "About this Publication;" Topical Index; and miscellaneous practice aids.
- Internal Revenue Code (2 volumes) - includes "How to Use the Code Volumes;" Code Topical Index; Source Notes--Finding List; Code Table of Contents; full text of current code and amendment notes; and Related Statutes.
- Compilations (18 volumes) - include full text of Internal Revenue Code sections; regulations and proposed regulations; excerpts of committee reports; CCH explanations; and annotations of cases and rulings beginning in 1913.
- Volume 19 includes Topical Index to 2002 Developments; Cumulative Index to 2002 Developments; 2002 Finding Lists; 2002 Case Tables; Supreme Court docket; 2002 Legislation; Regulations Status Tables; full text of 2002 Rulings; 2002 Treasury Decision Preambles; digests of selected IRS Letter Rulings; digests of 2002 Tax Court Decisions; CCH Comments; and CCH Tax Focus and Features.
- Citator (2 volumes) - includes "How to Use this Citator;" Current Citator Table; main citator; and Finding Lists. U.S. Tax Cases--Advance Sheets - includes Proposed Regulations; Digests Last 2001 Court Decisions, not received in time to be included in the compilations; and 2002 U.S. Tax Cases