A sigh of relief

The U.S. Supreme Court decided its big tax case today. The IRS won — or Congress, really, since the Court upheld part of the tax code against a constitutional challenge. And the government’s victory means that no serious damage was done to the nation’s tax system.

Justice Budweiser Kavanaugh wrote the main opinion, which got five votes. It decided the dispute on the narrowest possible grounds, which is precisely what the government asked the justices to do. As a consequence, the ruling may not be all that important in the future. Those of us who were wishing the Court hadn’t taken the case are relieved.

A few of the other justices had their law clerks earn their salaries by drafting fascinating law review articles disguised as separate opinions. But only two members of the Court thought the taxpayers should win.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the majority opinion was its reliance on the history of the tax laws. The Court noted approvingly that the law in question was a lot like other business tax provisions added to the Internal Revenue Code over the decades. I don’t know about that logic. If Congress oversteps its authority enough times in the same way, that makes it okay?

Anyway, given how much mischief could have been caused, it was a decent outcome, and above all, the right result. If only the folks on Capitol Hill would do a similarly adequate job on their end of things, the system would be muddling along, doing its job, instead of drowning in complexity and unfairness.