Tax professionals are inundated with tax developments from all branches of the government and from all levels of government on a daily basis. Our technical tax knowledge expands weekly. Given the immensity of tax law changes in P.L. 119-21 (July 4, 2025), informally named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), and the guidance we’ll continue to get over the next few years along with non-OBBBA updates, we might run out of time and bandwidth to step back and ask what additional relevance this guidance, as well as various reports issued by the government every day, mean for the well-being of our tax system. This article unpacks select tax law changes and government documents to offer four subtle messages within them. Generally, the messages don’t bode well for an effective tax and revenue system. The article ends with some suggestions on what can help improve our tax system.
Worrisome Messages Subtly Delivered Via Recent Tax Developments
Tax professionals are inundated with tax developments from all branches of the government and from all levels of government on a daily basis. Our technical tax knowledge expands weekly. Given the immensity of tax law changes in P.L. 119-21 (July 4, 2025), informally named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), and the guidance we’ll continue to get over the next few years along with non-OBBBA updates, we might run out of time and bandwidth to step back and ask what additional relevance this guidance, as well as various reports issued by the government every day, mean for the well-being of our tax system. This article unpacks select tax law changes and government documents to offer four subtle messages within them. Generally, the messages don’t bode well for an effective tax and revenue system. The article ends with some suggestions on what can help improve our tax system.
