George Hani was quoted regarding the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS') guidance that prevents disregarded entities, or single-member LLCs, as well as spouses, revocable trusts and others from electing out of the new partnership audit regime. The burden on the government is minimal if certain partners are disregarded entities, because as single-member LLCs, they are also taxed at the individual level, Hani said, adding that he believes allowing disregarded entities to be eligible to elect out is more consistent with the congressional intent behind the BBA. "My perspective is that Congress, in enacting the new regime, made the decision that the deficiency procedures were OK with partnerships with 100 or fewer partners and 100 or fewer individual partners. And so if Congress views it that way, why would a partnership with 99 individuals and one disregarded entity be any less or more of a burden to the government?," he said. The same reasoning would apply if the partnership had one individual partner and 99 disregarded entities, Hani said, adding that the burden on the government to use deficiency procedures as opposed to the centralized audit is "materially the same" if there are 100 individuals or 100 separate disinterested entities. "Congress clearly envisioned the prospect for additional eligible partners," he said. "The test should be whether the additional partners that would now be allowed to elect out pose meaningfully different burdens on the IRS to audit, compared to those allowed the elect-out under the statute only."