TITLE 26.-INTERNAL REVENUE CODE Act Feb. 10, 1939, ch. 2, 53 Stat. 1-504 The Internal Revenue Code set out herein supplants provisions of former Titles 26, Internal Revenue, U. S. Code, 1925 and 1934 editions. Revenue acts from 1916 to time of enactment of Internal Revenue Code are listed below. 1916 Sept. 8, 1916, ch. 463, 39 Stat. 756. DISTRIBUTION TABLE Tables showing where corresponding sections of former Titles 26, Internal Revenue, U. S. Code, 1925 and 1934 editions, are now incorporated in Internal Revenue Code, set out herein, will be found in Tables Volume. § 1. Internal Revenue Code. The laws of the United States hereinafter codified and set forth as a part of this title under the heading "Internal Revenue Title" are hereby enacted into law. (53 Stat. 1.) § 2. Citation. This title and the internal revenue title incorporated herein shall be known as the Internal Revenue Code and may be cited as "I. R. C." (53 Stat. 1.) §3. Effective date. Except as otherwise provided herein, this title shall take effect on the day following the date of its enactment. (53 Stat. 1.) § 4. Repeal and savings provisions. (a) The Internal Revenue Title, as hereinafter set forth, is intended to include all general laws of the United States and parts of such laws, relating exclusively to internal revenue, in force on the 2d day of January 1939 (1) of a permanent nature and (2) of a temporary nature if embraced in said Internal Revenue Title. In furtherance of that purpose, all such laws and parts of laws codified herein, to the extent they relate exclusively to internal revenue, are repealed, effective, except as provided in section 5, on the day following the date of the enactment of this title. (b) Such repeal shall not affect any act done or any right accruing or accrued, or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil cause before the said repeal, but all rights and liabilities under said acts shall continue, and may be enforced in the same manner, as if said repeal had not been Page 3269 made; nor shall any office, position, employment, board, or committee, be abolished by such repeal, but the same shall continue under the pertinent provisions of the Internal Revenue Title. (c) All offenses committed, and all penalties or forfeitures incurred under any statute hereby repealed, may be prosecuted and punished in the same manner and with the same effect as if this title had not been passed. (d) All acts of limitation, whether applicable to civil causes and proceedings, or to the prosecution of offenses, or for the recovery of penalties or forfeitures, hereby repealed shall not be affected thereby, but all suits, proceedings, or prosecutions, whether civil or criminal, for causes arising, or acts done or committed, prior to said repeal, may be commenced and prosecuted within the same time as if this title had not been passed. (e) The authority vested in the President of the United States, or in any officer or officers of the Treasury Department, by the law as it existed immediately prior to the enactment of this title, hereafter to give publicity to tax returns required under any internal revenue law in force immediately prior to the enactment of this title or any information therein contained, and to furnish copies thereof and to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which such publicity may be given or such copies furnished, and to make rules and regulations with respect to such publicity, is hereby preserved. And the provisions of law authorizing such publicity and prescribing the terms, conditions, limitations, and restrictions upon such publicity and upon the use of the information gained through such publicity and the provisions of law prescribing penalties for unlawful publicity of such returns and for unlawful use of such information are hereby preserved and continued in full force and effect. (53 Stat. 1.) § 5. Continuance of existing law. Any provision of law in force on the 2d day of January 1939 corresponding to a provision contained in the Internal Revenue Title shall remain in force until the corresponding provision under such Title takes effect. (53 Stat. 1a.) § 6. Arrangement, classification, and cross references. The arrangement and classification of the several provisions of the Internal Revenue Title have been made for the purpose of a more convenient and orderly arrangement of the same, and, therefore, no inference, implication or presumption of legislative construction shall be drawn or made by reason of the location or grouping of any particular section or provision or portion thereof, nor shall any outline, analysis, cross reference, or descriptive matter relating to the contents of said Title be given any legal effect. (53 Stat. 1a.) § 7. Effect upon subsequent legislation. The enactment of this title shall not repeal nor affect any act of Congress passed since the 2d day of January 1939, and all acts passed since that date shall have full effect as if passed after the enactment of this title; but, so far as such acts vary from, or conflict with, any provision contained in this title, they are to have effect as subsequent statutes, and as repealing any portion of this title inconsistent therewith. (53 Stat. 1a.) § 8. Copies as evidence of original. Copies of this title printed at the Government Printing Office and bearing its imprint shall be conclusive evidence of the original Internal Revenue Code in the custody of the Secretary of State. (53 Stat. 1a.) § 9. Publication. The said Internal Revenue Code shall be published as a separate part of a volume of the United States Statutes at Large,1 with an appendix and index, but without marginal references; the date of enactment, bill number, public and chapter number shall be printed as a headnote. (53 Stat. 1a.) § 10. Internal Revenue Title. The Internal Revenue Title, heretofore referred to, and hereby and herein enacted into law, is as follows: (53 Stat. 1a.) HISTORY OF INTERNAL REVENUE CODE The Internal Revenue Code, approved February 10, 1939, consists of the preliminary sections relating to enactment, set out above, and the Internal Revenue Title, containing all United States statutes of a general and permanent nature relating exclusively to internal revenue, in force on January 2, 1939. This code is not an innovation in Federal legislation, for the Criminal Code and the Judicial Code are two modern statutes enacted by Congress for the purpose of codifying the laws relating to their respective topics. However, it is the first Federal act of its kind relating exclusively to internal revenue since the publication of the Revised Statutes of the United States, approved June 22, 1874. ultimate origin The Internal Revenue Code traces its to 164 separate enactments of Congress. The earliest of these was approved July 1, 1862, and the latest on June 16, 1938. These statutes were codified without substantive change and with only such change of form as was required by arrangement and consolidation. The only provision not derived from a law approved prior to January 3, 1939, was that relating to the effective date. In June 1926 Congress passed the "Code of the Laws of the United States" which was the first general codification of Federal statutes since the Revised Statutes. It was revised in 1934 and again in 1940. The compilers of the United States Code acting under the supervision of the Revision of Laws Committee of the House of Representatives, incorporated all internal revenue laws of a general and permanent nature in Title 26, Internal Revenue. Title 26 of the United States Code was derived from the same general sources used in preparing the Internal Reve 1 United States Statutes at Large, Volume 53, Part 1, Internal Revenue Code. nue Code. Many sections in this title were taken from the Revised Statutes and others were based upon provisions of enactments passed subsequent to the Revised Statutes and in force on December 7, 1925. The title was supplemented annually by the compilers as Congress enacted new internal revenue acts. It was prima facie evidence of the internal revenue laws of a general and permanent nature from 1926 until the statutes upon which it was based were repealed in 1939 by the Internal Revenue Code. The Internal Revenue Code was drafted by the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, with the assistance of the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Justice. By section 4 of the codifying act of Feb. 10, 1939, 53 Stat. 1, all laws and parts of laws embodied in the code to the extent they related exclusively to Internal Revenue were repealed. |