Andrew brings up an important contextual piece of tax advice.

Because I'm seeing a lot of talk on here expressing a high level of certainty about Trump's tax returns (either that they're criminal or that there's nothing wrong with them or something in the middle.) 1/ https://twitter.com/Andrew___Baker/status/1310957118007246849

None of the certainty is coming from tax people, though.

Why not?

Partly because of the way we give tax advice. 2/

One part of transactional tax work is to provide tax opinions to clients. The opinions are meant to help clients decide what to do, to help guide accountants when they file tax returns, and to help protect clients from penalties. 3/

I don't know if the way we write tax opinions is unique--tax law is the only kind of law I practiced--but if you're not an attorney, it probably sounds weird.

Basically, we offer 4(-ish) levels of confidence: Will, Should, More Likely Than Not, and Substantial Authority. 4/

These levels of confidence aren't precise, but roughly:

Will = >90% change that a court will agree with the position

Should = >75% chance

MLTN = >50% chance

SA = > ~33% chance 5/

Mostly tax attorneys don't give Will opinions. It's not because there is nothing in the tax law we're absolutely confident about, but it's because what client is going to pay for advice about something that obviously correct? 6/

(Sometimes you get to write a Will opinion because the counterparty in a transaction requires a Will-level opinion.) 7/

But most of tax practice is confronting and dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity and helping your client navigate those shores as well as possible.

So constitutionally, tax people are reluctant to make grand and absolute pronouncements. 8/

And, of course, like every other area of law, you can give clients the best advice possible but you can't force them to take it. 9/9