Increasing Participation in the Rulemaking Process

Abstract

Agency rulemaking has an immense impact on federal policymaking. The Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) paradigm of notice and comment is meant to provide a mechanism to allow for responsiveness and accountability to unelected agency officials who wield enormous power when promulgating general rules. This article centers on the insufficiency of notice and comment to provide both input to the IRS and legitimacy to the IRS’s actions when guidance touches on issues that are germane to lower income or disadvantaged taxpayers.

In this brief article, I build on administrative and poverty law scholars who have looked at the ways institutional proxies can help agencies design better rules ex ante, enhance the legitimacy of agency actions, and improve public respect and trust in government. To that end, I look to ways to formalize the TAS role in rulemaking so that its influence is more clearly tethered to its institutional powers.

Keywords: Rulemaking, APA, Taxpayer Advocate Service, Notice and Comment