Congressional Smuggling

All taxpayers may be created equal, but “certain” taxpayers are more equal than others.

Who they are, and why, is a mystery, but they were hand-picked by the House Ways and Means Committee that wrote the most comprehensive changes in U.S. tax law since 1913.

The taxpaying public is offered some tantalizing clues to their identity in the section of the tax bill that provides for transition to the new tax system.

They are whoever is involved in “certain mass-commuting vehicles,” said vehicles being specifically mentioned as candidates for tax breaks not available to other taxpayers. Or people behind a “certain domed stadium,” or “a specified amount of wharf and dock facility.” There is a break for a savings and loan that was chartered on March 22, 1985. No names, please.

It is gibberish, but apparently it is all that is required for “certain” taxpayers to grab the money and run, courtesy of friends in high--or, if you prefer, low--places.

Congress has been smuggling such tax codes into the tax code for years as a result of conversations among committee members that run roughly as follows: “You need my vote, and I have this friend at home who . . . . “ But the fact that it has a long tradition does not make it right.

Committee members will sing the praises of their historic document during debate on the House floor, but they are not likely to raise the question of “certain” taxpayers, and if the subject comes up they are just as unlikely to squeal.

The pity is that the next time a public-opinion poll shows a low level of confidence in Congress among a skeptical public, the members of the committee will pout and console one another and wonder what gets into taxpayers to make them so unappreciative of their hard-working Congress.