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important to require explicitly and unambiguously that this
verification occur “at”, rather than before or after, the
hearing. As the Supreme Court has instructed lower courts as to
the proper approach to statutory construction:
canons of construction are no more than rules of thumb
that help courts determine the meaning of legislation,
and in interpreting a statute a court should always
turn first to one, cardinal canon before all others.
We have stated time and again that courts must presume
that a legislature says in a statute what it means and
means in a statute what it says there. When the words
of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is
also the last: judicial inquiry is complete. [Conn.
Natl. Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-254 (1992);
citations and quotation marks omitted.]
5. Right To Raise New Issues at the Hearing
Section 6330(c)(2)(A) provides unambiguously that a taxpayer
“may raise at the hearing any relevant issue relating to the
unpaid tax or the proposed levy”.5 (Emphasis added.) The
legislative history reinforces this result by also stating
unambiguously that a taxpayer is entitled to raise any relevant
issue at (as opposed to before) the hearing and that relevant
issues may “include (but not limited to)” the issues set forth in
section 6330(c)(2)(A). S. Rept. 105-174, supra at 68, 1998-3
C.B. at 604; see also H. Conf. Rept. 105-599, supra at 265, 1998-
3 C.B. at 1019 (similar language). I conclude that petitioners
were entitled to raise at a CDP hearing any relevant issue
5 The majority conveniently omit from their paraphrasing of
sec. 6330(c)(2)(A) that the taxpayer is allowed to raise any
relevant issue “at the hearing”. See majority op. p. 3.
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