A Macro-Case Analysis Approach to Tax Research - A Reply.

Abstract The article presents author's reply to comments by Jerome S. Horvitz, associate professor of taxation and D.R. Finley, assistant professor of accounting, at the University of Houston, published in the July 1979 issue of the journal "The Accounting Review," on author's research paper on macro-case analysis approach to tax research in facilitating tax compliance and planning. According to the author, Horvitz and Finley appear to miss the essence and the purposes for macro-case analysis. Choosing only objectively determinable factors minimizes the subjectivity normally inherent in traditional legal research. To state that this objectivity ignores the essence of judicial decision making is to ignore the possibility of judges reaching a conclusion and then constructing a rationale leading to it, to overlook judges acting as social policy-makers to improve on the work of other institutions and never to have had the pleasure of reading case-by-case in order to figure out how to defensibly weigh factors in the valuation of closely-held corporations.