Wait, hold on.
If a tax accountant does something, it's not their fault? How does that work?
If they aren't responsible for doing these things, why is it that they're getting paid for it?
How is it not their fault?
Tax law has a ton of penalties and requirements for professional (tax return) preparers. E.g., in applying tax law to our clients' situations we are mandated to follow a 'list' of authority, meaning we have to apply tax law the way that authority tells. (Authority means, court cases, the law itself, IRS regulations etc in that order.)
So, if the court says we have to treat Carried Interest as 15% LTCG, even if we personally disagree, we HAVE to do it.
I.e., we are prohibited by law from just 'doing it our way'. Moreover, and I think this s/b obvious but your post implies you are unaware of it, a "profession" means being aware of, understanding and following a standardized set of professional guidelines. In the case of tax law, unlike GAAP, these standards are NOT set by accountants. To suggest that it's somehow accountants' fault for following rules mandated to us by the courts or Congress is wrong.
And here we go, people trying to excuse the inexcusable, and compare widely-advertised schemes setup for normal people to take advantage of, with the actions of well-trained accountants scouring the fine print of tax laws.
You're damned right we scour the fine print (and a whole lot more) of tax laws. Doing anything less is unprofessional and could result in grave penalties for us.
Heck, the IRS itself WANTS us to know these rules in detail. They want everybody on the same page treating everything the same way. In the past decade or so they have changed their approach to that of trying to make sure as many as possible understand the law. Their approach now is, as they themselves say, "people want to comply, but have trouble because it's too complicated" instead of the former "people are trying to cheat".
Fern