ABSTRACT
This chapter explores to erase the public-private divide between the tax reform debates. Both corporations and families are sociolegal constructions. As constructions, the federal tax laws sometimes choose to ignore them, at other times treat them as artificial entities, and at yet other times endow them with real meaning for tax purposes. For federal tax purposes, the extended family generally begins with the married couple and their children. When the federal tax laws take extended family into account, they generally do so for one of two purposes: either to prevent abuse of the tax laws; or to remove tax impediments to intrafamily transactions. Given how naturally the corporate tax debate leans toward leveling down, one might thus have expected to encounter the same inclination toward leveling down in the family tax debate. Commentators have sharply criticized the distortions created by imposing a nominally heavier tax burden on taxable corporations than on fiscally transparent business entities.
