Commentary The Internal Revenue Code should be considered a contract between citizens and the government. When Congress makes changes to the law, prior promises should rarely if ever be withdrawn or modified. Government should never subsequently punish taxpayers for arranging their transactions as allowed by the existing tax law at the time of a transaction. Judge Learned Hand, a federal court of appeals judge in the 1950s, famously said, “Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.” Today, the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives should caution that in arranging one’s affairs to successfully result in the lowest tax under the law, one should be wary of their ability and desire to change those rules …