- 24 - Circuit, to which an appeal of the instant case would lie absent stipulation of the parties to the contrary, has stated that where "Congress has not directly spoken to the precise question at issue, the [Chevron] rule * * * should be applied". Peoples Fed. Sav. & Loan Association v. Commissioner, 948 F.2d 289, 299 (6th Cir. 1991), revg. T.C. Memo. 1990-129. "If there are gaps left by silence or ambiguity of the statutes in question, agencies may fill the gaps with necessary rules, providing they are reasonable, and courts should not interfere with this process." Id. at 300. Petitioners maintain that the phrase "on the basis of experience" is not defined in the statute and that Congress did not delegate to the Commissioner the authority to define the phrase. Petitioners assert further that no definition is necessary because the phrase is not ambiguous and must be interpreted in accordance with its plain, everyday meaning. We conclude, however, that the phrase is ambiguous. The words in a revenue act generally should be interpreted in their ordinary, everyday sense. Commissioner v. Soliman, 506 U.S. 168, 174 (1993). Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary (1984) defines "experience" as "An event or series of events participated in" or "The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group." We do not find in that definition a clear mechanism for determining how a taxpayer's bad debt experience will be utilized to calculate the uncollectiblePage: Previous 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Next
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