Tei's Role in Improving the Tax System is Nothing New (Tax Executives Institute‪)‬

In my January-February column, I summarized the reasons for the Institute's founding in a single sentence: "Sixty-five years ago, a small group of New York tax professionals formed TEI to provide in-house tax professionals with a forum to exchange views, educate one another, and advocate for positive changes in the tax system." Who could quibble with that? As it turns out, someone who, to borrow the title of Dean Acheson's memoir of his time as Secretary of State, was "present at the creation." (Acheson himself appropriated the phrase--with attribution--from Alphonso X, King of Spain.) My throw-away line about TEI's "advocat[ing] for positive change in the tax system" prompted a letter from Morris Rinehart, a loyal reader who joined TEI sixty years ago and served as the organization's president in 1964-1965. Morris's genteel letter put a gloss on the word "advocating." He pointed out that, from its founding in 1944 to around 1970, TEI focused on the administrative aspects of federal tax policy, but eschewed legislative lobbying. Morris put it this way: