In the popular media, Capitol Hill is swarming with corporate tax lobbyists pushing lawmakers to enact unjustified loopholes for their businesses. Sometimes that is true, but probably more often businesses are on the Hill fighting against unjustified revenue grabs by politicians trying to soak them with tax hikes invisible to the general public.

The big tax bill recently introduced by House Ways and Means chairman, Charles Rangel, provides many examples of unjustified revenue grabs. A corporate tax lawyer sent me a one-pager on proposed changes to LIFO inventory accounting:

LIFO in a Nutshell

Among provisions of Chairman Rangel’s “Tax Reduction and Reform Act of 2007” is repeal of the LIFO method of valuing inventory. According to scoring by the Joint Tax Committee, repeal would raise additional tax revenue of over $100 billion over ten years. Although complicated in its details, the rationale for LIFO is both simple and sensible – the best way of measuring the income of businesses with rising costs of supplies … LIFO is an abbreviation for “last-in-first-out”. This is opposed to the other common inventory accounting convention which is “FIFO” for “first-in-first-out” … LIFO is considered a more accurate accounting method when inventory costs are rising, by taking into account the greater costs of replacing inventory. This gives a better measure of both the financial condition of the business … After thorough consideration of the issue by the Congress, LIFO came into the tax law in 1939.

To sum up: Out of the view of average voters, Mr. Rangel wants to change established law of seven decades to shake an added $100 billion (that’s with a “b”) out of U.S. manufacturers, in a way that apparently doesn’t make any economic sense and will damage their competitiveness, while federal revenues are pouring into the Treasury and have already risen above historically normal levels.

Three cheers for the corporate tax lobbyists who fight this sort of nonsense!