Taxes From A To Z (2014): I Is For Internal Revenue Code

Most taxpayers are familiar with the 16th Amendment of the Constitution which sets the stage for the collection of federal income tax:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

But that's just the beginning. Since the 16th Amendment was adopted in 1913, additional federal tax laws have been codified and organized under the United States Code (U.S.C.). Today, most of those tax laws have been codified at Title 26 (26 U.S.C.) and commonly referred to as the Tax Code. It's worth noting, though, that the Tax Code, or Internal Revenue Code, includes most – but not all – federal tax laws. You'll find more tax laws in other parts of the United States Code, including at Title 11 (Bankruptcy); Title 19 (Customs) and Title 28 (Judiciary).

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Title 26 is a way of distinguishing tax laws from other legal subjects under US law. The US Code is divided into sections and arranged by subject area referred to as titles. There are 51 titles in the Code.

Each title is further broken down into smaller pieces called subtitles, chapters, subchapters, parts, subparts, and sections. Some of the most popular subchapters in the Tax Code are subchapter k (dealing with partnerships) and subchapter s (dealing with s corporations). You might also be familiar with sections: those give rise to common tax terms like section 501(c)(3) (dealing with charitable organizations) and section 179 (dealing with expensing).

English: A few volumes of the Code of Federal Regulations (titles 12 to 26 out of 50 titles). The CFR is published each year as a set of softcover volumes which are updated on a quarterly schedule. Photographed at the law library of the UC Berkeley School of Law by user Coolcaesar on February 13, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Internal Revenue Code is enormous but it's not the biggest title in the US Code. The most words, elements and sections are found in Title 42 (The Public Health and Welfare). The most words per section? Those are found at Title 23 (Highways).

Notwithstanding that it's not the biggest title, Title 26 is still quite large: as of 2012, it was 73,608 pages long. But that doesn't include a number of other important guidance documents, including tax treaties and Treasury Regulations, which are found elsewhere.  Treasury Regulations (26 C.F.R.) – or "Regs" as tax professionals call them – are the Treasury Department's official interpretations of the Internal Revenue Code. In other words, it's how Treasury (and thus, IRS) understands and administers the specific provisions of the Tax Code – a power given to the Treasury by Congress under section 7805 of the Internal Revenue Code.

For more in the series, see: