🧾 Who Actually Makes the Tax Laws?

(Hint: It’s not the IRS. And it’s definitely not us.)

Every April, Americans perform the same ritual:
they curse the forms, blame the IRS, and swear the system is rigged.

On that last point, they’re right.
On the second, they’re aiming at the wrong target.

Let’s open the ledger.

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🏛️ Step One: Congress Writes the Tax Code

Tax laws are written by United States Congress.
Not accountants. Not economists. Not the IRS.

Specifically:

• The House Ways and Means Committee drafts tax legislation

• The Senate Finance Committee rewrites it

• Lobbyists supply the footnotes

• Staffers supply the commas

• Deals supply the outcomes

By the time a bill reaches the floor, it already contains:

• carve-outs

• exemptions

• credits

• deferrals

• “temporary” provisions that never expire

This is where complexity is born. Not accidentally. By design.

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🧠 Step Two: Lobbyists Shape the Math

Tax law is one of the most heavily lobbied areas in American life.

Why?
Because every line of the code can mean billions.

Corporations, trade groups, and ultra-wealthy individuals don’t argue whether taxes should exist. They argue how they should flow.

Deductions are engineered.
Credits are negotiated.
Losses are made portable.
Income is reclassified until it behaves.

This is not cheating.
This is participation.

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🏢 Step Three: The IRS Enforces, It Does Not Invent

The Internal Revenue Service does not make tax law.

It enforces whatever Congress hands it, including:

• contradictions

• loopholes

• unfunded mandates

• outdated definitions

• rules written for industries that no longer exist

Blaming the IRS for the tax code is like blaming a librarian for the contents of the books.

They didn’t write it.
They’re just trying to shelve it.

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🧑‍⚖️ Step Four: Courts Interpret the Gray Zones

When the language collapses under its own weight, the United States Tax Court steps in.

Judges interpret:

• what Congress meant

• what Congress said

• and what Congress clearly didn’t think through

Each ruling becomes precedent.
Each precedent becomes a new layer.
The code grows thicker. The maze grows taller.

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💼 Step Five: Who Benefits from the Complexity?

Not us.

Complexity rewards:

• those who can hire specialists

• those who can afford delay

• those whose income is flexible, mobile, or abstract

Wages are visible.
Assets are negotiable.

This is why:

• billionaires can pay lower effective rates than teachers

• corporations can show record profits and zero tax liability

• “simplification” is always promised and never delivered

The system works beautifully for those it was quietly tuned for.

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🧭 The Quiet Truth

If taxes were truly about fairness, the code would be short.

If they were about efficiency, the forms would fit on a postcard.

But taxes are about power, incentives, and negotiated advantage, written in a language most people never get time to learn.

So next time someone says “the IRS did this,” remember:

The handwriting is congressional.
The margins belong to lobbyists.
The bill arrives at your door.