90
Opinion of the Court
We mention this latter possibility because the congressional bill that became the law before us once did read that way. But when the bill left committee, it contained not the emphasized words ("the taxation and") but the cross-reference to chapter 35.
We recognize the Tribes' claim (made here for the first time) that one could avoid rewriting the statute by reading the language outside the parenthetical as if it referred to two kinds of "provisions of the . . . Code": first, those "concerning the reporting and withholding of taxes with respect to the winnings from gaming," and, second, those "concerning . . . wagering operations." See Reply Brief for Petitioners 8-10. The subsection's grammar literally permits this reading. But that reading, even if ultimately comprehensible, is far too convoluted to believe Congress intended it. Nor is there any reason to think Congress intended to sweep within the subsection's scope every Internal Revenue Code provision concerning wagering—a result that this unnatural reading would accomplish.
The subject matter at issue also counsels against accepting the Tribes' interpretation. That subject matter is tax exemption. When Congress enacts a tax exemption, it ordinarily does so explicitly. We can find no comparable instance in which Congress legislated an exemption through an inexplicit numerical cross-reference—especially a cross-reference that might easily escape notice.
As we have said, the more plausible role for the parenthetical to play in this subsection is that of providing an illustrative list of examples. So considered, "chapter 35" is simply a bad example—an example that Congress included inadvertently. The presence of a bad example in a statute does not warrant rewriting the remainder of the statute's language. Nor does it necessarily mean that the statute is ambiguous, i. e., "capable of being understood in two or more possible senses or ways." Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 77 (1985). Indeed, in ordinary
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