Until recently, the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department typically issued regulations involving the tax law with scant compliance with the familiar procedural requirements of administrative law for primarily three reasons. First, because tax law was considered “exceptional;” second, the agencies believed that their rules and regulations were exempt from the requirements of the APA and related statutes; and third, the “Anti-Injunction Act,” 26 U.S.C. § 7421(a), was thought to drastically limit judicial jurisdiction over taxpayer challenges to the validity of tax regulatory actions. Over the past decade, tax agency practices have been under attack and taxpayers have been pursuing their challenges to the procedural validity of tax regulations in the courts, notwithstanding the consistent opposition of the Government. Our speakers have been at the center of those challenges and will discuss several very recent cases highlighting the changing environment for APA challenges to tax regulations.

Featuring:
-- Kristin Hickman is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and the Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, who has published several of the seminal law review articles on this topic.
-- Stuart Bassin is a veteran litigator of tax cases and serves as the taxpayers’ counsel in one of the most prominent pending cases in this area. He was previously a trial attorney with the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
-- Moderator: Robert Carney is a Senior Counsel at Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered, in Washington, D.C., specializing in tax controversy and tax litigation. He also was previously a trial attorney with the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.