Addendum to the Regulations Problem (with Erwin N. Griswold)

For the past year, eminent tax lawyers have been batting backand forth the problem of the binding effect of regulations issuedby the Treasury to interpret or supplement tax legislation.\u27Most of the fun has come in mauling the so-called reenactment rule, which is said to be in danger of coming to mean that whenCongress has reenacted a revenue act, the regulations under theformer act acquire the force of law as if Congress had specificallywritten them into the statute. So extensive has been therecent writing in this field that the latest and best, Professor Griswold\u27sSummary of the Regulations Problem, commences with anapology for further comment. Under the circumstances, still anotherword on the subject would seem superfluous. Nevertheless,I do have an excuse to offer. The other writers on the subject havebeen tax lawyers, who have written about the problem as primarilyone in tax administration; 4 there is still need to ask whether thereenactment rule should be abolished in other fields of administration