Distinguishing the Internal Revenue Code from Title 26 (11/27/17)

In my working draft for the 2018 edition of my Federal Tax Procedure book (scheduled for publication in August 2018), I have recently revised my discussion on Codified and Uncodified Laws in relation to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (IRC) and Title 26 (which is not the enacted revenue law).  For some, that may be confusing, as it was for me until recently.  So, I offer my understanding of what all that means by presenting a summary discussion below of the revised discussion and the full text of the revised discussion here.  (I also will include this revised discussion in my next current supplement to the Federal Tax Procedure Book. 2017 Editions)  Here is the summary discussion with supporting links at the end of the blog:

All statutes are enacted by Congress as Statutes at Large.  Statutes at Large are said to be "positive law."  The Statutes at Large are direct and conclusive evidence of the law.

Congress has authorized the House Office of Law Revision to compile common subjects in the various Statutes at Large into Titles which are not "positive law" -- i.e., the Titles have not been enacted -- they are simply compilations of underlying Statutes at Large and, by statute, are only prima facie evidence of the law -- the underlying Statutes at Large.  See 1 USC § 104(a), here.

Sometimes Congress will enact a Title as a Statute at Large.  Most importantly for tax procedure purposes, the IRC has been enacted as a Statute at Large and is positive law.  The IRC is thus the law.  This enactment occurred in 1939 and again in 1954.  The 1954 enactment was named the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.  In 1986, Congress renamed that enactment as the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, at the same time that substantial amendments to various provisions of that Code were enacted.  But -- and this is critical -- Congress did not enact the IRC as Title 26 of the U.S. Code.  The House Office of Law Revision has compiled -- actually mirror imaged -- the IRC into Title 26.

Therefore, the correct conclusive citation to any provision of the IRC is to the IRC (which is the law) and not to Title 26 (which is only prima facie evidence of the IRC).  Still, most courts and commentators usually cite to Title 26.

And, some statutes that affect the application of the revenue laws are not in the IRC, and therefore not in Title 26 (the IRC mirror image).  A good example of such “uncodified” tax law is § 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978, which is legislation giving taxpayers certain relief in the ongoing problem of characterizing service provides as employees or independent contractors; that uncodified provision is referred to in a note to 26 U.S.C. § 3401, here [scroll to bottom of the notes].

Helpful links for this subject may be found in the following (which are referenced in the footnotes to the excerpt from the current revision of the Tax Procedure Book referenced above.:

• Library of Congress web page on Statutes at Large, here.
• House Office of Law Revision Counsel Guide, here, 
• House Office of Law Revision Counsel Positive Law Codification, here.
• House Office of Law Revision Counsel list of codified (positive law) and uncodified (not positive law) Titles of the U.S. Code, here. [Note that the positive law titles are identified by an asterisk]  For a list of the codified titles only, see the note to 1 U.S.C. § 104(a), here.
• Yin, George K., Codification of the Tax Law and the Emergence of the Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, pp. 19 (August 1, 2017). Virginia Law and Economics Research Paper No. 2017-20; Virginia Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 2017-39. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3008878
• Will Baude, Reminder: The United States Code is not the law (The Volokh Conspiracy 5/15/17), here.  
• Tobias A. Dorsey, Some Reflections on Not Reading the Statutes, 10 Green Bag 282 (2007), here.