Reading federal law and at the same time understanding it is, common sense holds, for lawyers, judges, and legislators. But frankly, after spending decades around federal laws, the authors of federal laws are often to blame, not the readers. Also, this is true about all laws from the ten commandments to state and local laws. Below is an example
The United States Code (Title 26 Section 509) defines “Private Foundation” that are exceptions to typical “501(c)(3)” non-profit entities, a common nonprofit legal structure. At the end of a longish four paragraph general rules section, the statute makes a friendly attempt to clarify and here’s the result:
“For purposes of paragraph (3), an organization described in paragraph (2) shall be deemed to include an organization described in section 501 (c)(4), (5), or (6) which would be described in paragraph (2) if it were an organization described in section 501 (c)(3).”
Does that even remotely clarify anything? Except perhaps that the people who wrote this ought to clarify why they have a job that involves clarification.
To clarify butter would make more sense.