Weird IRS News

When you are dealing with the tax code, you can't assume anything. Well, almost nothing. Sometimes, you get lucky. While Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s observation in The Common Law in 1881, that "The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience," is often correct, every once in a while the Internal Revenue Service confirms the obvious logical truth, although its need to do so is sometimes disturbing in and of itself, as well as being good evidence of how infrequently tax regulations are updated.

The IRS recently released Information Letter 2006-0025:

This letter responds to your letter dated November 4, 2005. In your letter, you requested information on whether Alaska and Hawaii, after their admission as States, are included within the definitions of “State” and “United States” contained under Employment Tax Regulation § 31.3121(e)-1. The simple answer is that Alaska and Hawaii are included within these definitions of “State” and “United States.”

Alaska and Hawaii are states. Who'd have thunk it?

Hat Tip to the Tax Profs Blog.