Subchapter K, Gateway Drugs, and Tax Reform

In this report, Monroe considers the rules that govern the treatment of partnership distributions, focusing on two sources of discord within this system — the general nonrecognition rule grounding partnership distributions and the legal craft values that animate the rules' design. She argues that legal craft functions as a restraint on meaningful tax reform, prioritizing perfection over progress. Monroe thus proposes a recognition-based approach to partnership distributions, one that strikes a more practical balance between legal craft, rule complexity, and taxpayer accessibility