Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2001
Publication Information
54 S.M.U. L. Rev. 159 (2001)
Abstract
Subchapter K of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code was designed to achieve simplicity and flexibility in taxing partners. To limit this flexibility the regulations under subchapter K contain "antiabuse rules", aimed at insuring that subchapter K rules are applied consistently, with the "intent" of those rules in mind and allowing the Commissioner to treat a partnership as an aggregate of its partners in applying any Internal Revenue Code provision. Though antiabuse rules have received harsh criticism for being badly written, they are valuable in many ways. Such rules define abuse as something distinct in principle from substance-over-form and business purpose and practices. They also establish abuse as something to be prevented. Anti-abuse regulations offer useful guidance about transactions that are not abusive-in some ways. They are pro-taxpayer. Brief and designed to guide people on day to day matters, they may also signal an improvement in the way in which regulations under subchapter K are drafted.
Recommended Citation
Alan Gunn,
The Use and Misuse of Antiabuse Rules: Lessons from the Partnership Antiabuse Regulations,
54 S.M.U. L. Rev. 159 (2001).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/830
Comments
Reprinted with permission of Southern Methodist University Law Review.