Cite as: 532 U. S. 200 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
than [tax] contributions are the statutory basis for calculating an individual's benefits." Brief for Respondent 14.
Nierotko thus does not compel symmetrical construction of the "wages paid" language in the discrete taxation and benefits eligibility contexts. Although we generally presume that "identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning," Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United States, 286 U. S. 427, 433 (1932), the presumption "is not rigid," and "the meaning [of the same words] well may vary to meet the purposes of the law," ibid. Cf. Cook, "Substance" and "Procedure" in the Conflict of Laws, 42 Yale L. J. 333, 337 (1933) ("The tendency to assume that a word which appears in two or more legal rules, and so in connection with more than one purpose, has and should have precisely the same scope in all of them . . . has all the tenacity of original sin and must constantly be guarded against."). The benefits scheme delineated in Title 42 would "no doubt" be set awry without an allocation-back rule for back wages, notwithstanding "ac-counting difficulties." Nierotko, 327 U. S., at 370. But that surely cannot be said for the taxation scheme described in Title 26, where Congress' evident concern was not worker eligibility for benefits, but fiscal administrability.12
12 In determining that "accounting difficulties" were "not . . . insuperable" to its allocation holding, Nierotko noted that " 'backpay' is now treated distributively" under § 119 of the Revenue Act of 1943. 327 U. S., at 370, and n. 26. Section 119 provided that backpay exceeding 15 percent of gross income may be allocated to earlier periods for income tax purposes if such allocation would reduce the taxpayer's liability. § 119(a), 58 Stat. 39. But Congress eliminated the 1943 backpay allocation rule in 1964, see Pub. L. 88-272, § 232(a), 78 Stat. 107, leaving behind the principle, "too firmly embedded in the income tax law to permit of any question," that "payments of compensation are income to a taxpayer on a cash basis in the year of receipt, as distinguished from the year in which the compensation is earned," 2 J. Mertens, Law of Federal Income Taxation § 12.42, p. 179 (1973). The symmetry urged by the Company in construing the tax and benefits provisions of FICA and FUTA thus comes only at the expense of asymmetry in the collection of income taxes and employment taxes.
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