Jerome Kurtz, IRS commissioner under Carter, dies at 83

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Jerome Kurtz, IRS commissioner under Carter, dies at 83

National
By Emily Langer March 5 
@emilylangerWP

Jerome Kurtz, a tax lawyer who served as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service under President Carter and sought to reverse long-standing policies that he considered disproportionately beneficial to the rich, died Feb. 27 in New York City. He was 83.
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Mr. Kurtz practiced law in Philadelphia before assuming his post as the nation’s top tax official in 1977. He previously worked in government during the Johnson administration as the Treasury Department’s tax legislative counsel and had established himself as an outspoken critic of certain policies often favored in the higher tax brackets.
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As commissioner, Mr. Kurtz launched an offensive on abuse of tax shelters, the arrangements some individual and corporate taxpayers use to minimize their tax burdens. Among the practices he targeted were commodities transactions such as the one involving silver — known as the “silver butterfly” — in which investors staggered profits and losses to decrease the taxes they owed. ...
More controversially — and less successfully —Mr. Kurtz sought to tax “fringe” benefits such as employee discounts, company cars and other common perquisites as income. That move was stymied by members of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee in the House.

Forbes magazine wrote that Mr. Kurtz was “having a ball kicking long-established corporate perks in the groin, with or without new legislation.” To those who complained, he suggested that they “take a lower paying job and use standard deductions.”