The Unreadable Internal Revenue Code or IRC

No Suicide Courage -Try Reading the Internal Revenue Code or IRC

The Internal Revenue Code is the grouping in one place of all the United States Tax Regulations or the Federal Tax Code. The bound hard-copy version of the IRS Code is usually seen in two volumes, each being roughly 3 inches thick. I had the unlucky job of having to refer to these volumes several times per week in my job as Trustee of large corporate pension and 401k plans for a major commercial bank.

The section below is an excerpt from the actual 401k plan language in the Tax Code. I am including it merely as an example of why you never want to read the IRS Code unless you want a very painful exercise. Then again, such reading would be very useful in bolstering your courage should you be contemplating suicide.

Section 401(k)
(1) General Rule. A profit-sharing or stock bonus plan, a pre-ERISA money purchase plan, or a rural cooperative plan shall not be considered as not satisfying the requirements of subsection (a) merely because the plan includes a qualified cash or deferred arrangement.

The Internal Revenue Code is written in Negatives. Read the first paragraph and think about what it means. “… not be considered as not satisfying merely because…” . This statement is actually one of the easier ones since it is only a double negative. Many of the sections have triple negatives, such that

“….section xxx will not be considered as not satisfying the requirements of part II, subsection 3, paragraph 4, merely because it does not include a statement…”.

You could find me many times sitting and staring at the wall trying to decipher exactly what the statements mean. The mind just cannot work in triple negatives. I would go over it and over it, and finally give up and go home.

Try an analogy – “The weather will not be deemed as not being sunny merely because there is not much sun shining thru the clouds. ..” If you can read this and stay sane, maybe you should be a tax lawyer. Why write in triple negatives? The only reason I can think of after reading the IRC (Internal Revenue Code) for over 30 years is that it actually permitted greater accuracy of intent. Either that or it gives great job security for the IRS Code writers and tax attorneys. For me, I would just prefer to say “it is partly sunny out today”.

Then there are the passages I simply could not decipher:

(D) which does not require, as a condition of participation in the arrangement, that an employee complete a period of service with the employer (or employers) maintaining the plan extending beyond the period permitted under section 410(a)(1) (determined without regard to subparagraph (B)(i) thereof):

I read and cross referenced this sentence for roughly 4 hours one day. I thought I had it down for the issue I was researching until one of my tax attorneys told me I was looking in the wrong section of the code for the answer. I will say the local bar got a lot of business from the other people in my division.

So, if you have masochistic tendencies, here is your link. Have a ball:

Internal Revenue Code of the United States