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which would be available. It says nothing about any other
purpose and is thus distinguishable from Shriners Hospitals for
Crippled Children v. United States, 862 F.2d 1561, 1563 (Fed.
Cir. 1988), cited by petitioner, where it was clear that the
statute there involved was to be retroactive “for all purposes”.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit cogently made the
appropriate distinction in Fluor Corp. & Affiliates when it
observed:
while interpreting the word “deemed” to mean “treated
as if” answers the question of what year the credit
will be applied to, it does not answer the question of
when the reallocation of the foreign tax credit will be
deemed to occur--whether in the carryback year or at
the time the carryback was generated, one or two years
later. * * * We are thus confronted with an ambiguity
as to whether Congress meant the language of section
904(c) to forbid the assessment of interest on a
previous tax deficiency that is erased as a result of
the foreign tax carryback. [Fluor Corp. & Affiliates
v. United States, 126 F.3d at 1401-1402.]
Thus, the phrase is ambiguous, and it is our task to
determine its meaning. In so doing, we must find our way without
the benefit of any legislative history directed to this
ambiguity. In this connection, we think it of some significance,
albeit tangential, that, in the Technical Changes Act of 1949,
ch. 720, 63 Stat. 891, Congress amended section 131(c) of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1939 to include a provision, reenacted
in section 905(c) of the 1954 Code, that, if a taxpayer received
a refund of foreign taxes for which credit had been claimed, the
taxpayer would have to pay interest on the deficiency thus
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