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Opinion of the Court
performance of the services for which the wages were paid." Treas. Regs. 91, Arts. 202, 302 (1936) (emphasis added). In 1939, Congress amended the 1935 Act to provide that FICA and FUTA tax rates would no longer apply on the basis of when services were performed, but would instead apply "with respect to wages paid during the calendar yea[r]." Social Security Act Amendments of 1939 (1939 Amendments), §§ 604, 608, 53 Stat. 1383, 1387 (emphasis added). This 1939 language remains essentially unchanged in the current FICA and FUTA tax provisions, 26 U. S. C. §§ 3111(a) and 3301.
Acknowledging that the 1939 Amendments established a "wages paid" rule for FICA and FUTA taxation, the Company nevertheless argues that Social Security Bd. v. Nierotko, 327 U. S. 358 (1946), undermines the Govern-ment's plain language argument. According due weight to our precedent, we agree.
In Nierotko, the National Labor Relations Board had ordered the reinstatement of a wrongfully discharged employee with "back pay" covering wages lost during the period from February 1937 to September 1939. Id., at 359. The employer paid the award in July 1941. Id., at 359-360. The primary question presented and aired in the Court's opinion was whether backpay for a time in which the employee was not on the job should nevertheless count as "wages" in determining the employee's eligibility for Social Security benefits. Id., at 359. Notwithstanding the contrary view of the Social Security Board and the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Court held that backpay covering the wrongful discharge period met the definition of "wages" in the 1935 Act. Id., at 360-370.
In the final two paragraphs of the Nierotko opinion, the Court took up the question of how the backpay award should be allocated for purposes of determining the worker's eligibility for benefits. As originally enacted, the Social Security Act extended benefits to persons over 65 who had
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