E. Sources of the Law, continued

5. Administrative Regulations

Congress has created a great many administrative agencies to assist the executive branch of our government (the president and vice president) in enforcing the laws passed by the legislative branch (Congress). Several examples would be the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). While Congress passes the laws that create these agencies (and the need for these agencies), the agencies are given a broad grant of power to create regulations to manage their operations and to enable them to do the jobs for which they were created. For example, in 1913, the U.S. Constitution was amended to include the 16th Amendment, which gave Congress the authority to enact an income tax. This created the need for the Internal Revenue Service to enforce that legislation. Congress did not, and certainly cannot, craft laws to manage every aspect of the operation of the IRS. The IRS was given the power to create regulations detailing, for example, what procedures would be in place for reporting income and collecting taxes, what sort of deductions would be allowed, under what circumstances extensions would be granted, etc. These regulations are embodied in the Internal Revenue Code.

The interesting thing about regulations is that they are not true laws, in the sense that they were not passed by a legislative body. But, remember, regulations have all the force and effect of law! This means that violating them can result in severe penalties, like fines and incarceration, just like violating statutory law.