The Work Product Doctrine and Tax Accrual Workpapers

Abstract

In its rehearing of Textron, the First Circuit will soon have an opportunity to rectify an error and to curb unwise recent expansion of work product protection for tax accrual workpapers.

This article argues that disclosure to the IRS of tax accrual workpapers would not compromise the values on which the work product doctrine is based, but rather would further some of those values. It is to be hoped that the full First Circuit and subsequent courts hearing similar cases will read Rule 26(b)(3) in terms of its purposes and, in so doing, will proceed in the direction the Supreme Court laid out in Arthur Young but from which prior Textron opinions strayed.