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The 71,000-page tax code has become loaded with dozens of obscure but economically valuable tax breaks. Nascar racetrack operators can speed up their write-offs for improvements to their facilities; makers of toy wooden arrows pay no excise tax; and Eskimo whaling captains get a charitable deduction of up to $10,000 for hunting blubber.
Multibillion-dollar operations like oil refineries, Hollywood productions and hedge funds have all profited. And there is little sign that the lawmakers who helped write the breaks into the tax code are willing to back away from them.
Whether any of them are scrubbed from the books may ultimately prove how serious Congress is about reducing the debt, and how adept powerful lobbies are at guarding their benefits, political analysts and tax experts say.
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