Preface 2013 : The Capacity to Be Taxed Is the Capacity to Self-Destruct

This is the eighth Green Bag Almanac & Reader. This year is a special one, though, for reasons given after our customary salute to our diligent board and before our customary confessions of editorial error. There are two big problems with this Almanac. First, it is late — printed in September 2013, not in the winter of 2012-13, as it should have been. Second, it is relatively plain and boring — it lacks both the elaborate design and the voluminously numerous entertaining tidbits featured in previous Almanacs. (The exemplary legal writing is still excellent, of course, as are the annual reviews on pages 19-78 below.) Both problems are our own fault, because we screwed up the Green Bag, Inc.’s taxes. Permit me to explain. The Green Bag, Inc. — publisher not only of this Almanac but also of the Green Bag (a law journal) and several other publications, as well as producer of such works of scholarly artistry as the Supreme Court Sluggers trading cards and a series of bobbleheads of Supreme Court Justices — was a not-for-profit corporation blessed by the IRS with limited tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the federal internal revenue code. We received our 501(c)(3) determination in 1998, shortly after the company was formed. But in August 2010 we lost it. Like many not-for-profits, the Green Bag, Inc. had been stupidly failing to engage in the fairly simple process of filing the required tax forms. As a result, when the IRS launched its automatic revocation system in 2010, we were one of the roughly 275,000 not-for-profits whose tax exemptions were revoked. Since then, we have developed a deeper appreciation for the old adage about it being easier to get into trouble than to get out of it, as this preface illustrates