Transparency, Trust, And TEI (Chapter News‪)‬

For those of a certain age, undoubtedly the first time we saw the word "transparency" was on a sign attached to an overhead projector that said, "Do not use Magic Marker on the transparency." In preparing my remarks, I undertook to identify the first time the word was used in relation to tax. So I turned to the Internet's fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia. It reminded me that initially "transparency" related to the government, as in open government or government in the sunshine. Consider what the world was like in 1980, when I started practicing tax law with the Tax Division's Appellate Section in the Department of Justice. My tenure began right after Tax Analysts brought a series of Freedom of Information Act suits attacking the IRS's "secret law." FOIA wasn't that old at the time; it was enacted in 1966. That was pretty late in the game when you consider that Sweden's version of FOIA became law 200 years earlier.