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history primarily to learn the purpose of the statute and, if
necessary, to resolve any ambiguity in the words prescribed in
the text. Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244 (1994);
United States v. Am. Trucking Associations, Inc., 310 U.S. 534,
543-544 (1940); Allen v. Commissioner, 118 T.C. 1, 7 (2002). I
apply the plain meaning of the words prescribed in the text
unless I find that a word’s plain meaning is inescapably
ambiguous. Commissioner v. Soliman, 506 U.S. 168, 174 (1993);
Garcia v. United States, 469 U.S. 70, 76 n.3 (1984); Venture
Funding, Ltd. v. Commissioner, 110 T.C. 236, 241-242 (1998),
affd. without published opinion 198 F.3d 248 (6th Cir. 1999); see
also Ex parte Collett, 337 U.S. 55 (1949). I understand that the
Court’s “task is to give effect to the will of Congress, and
where its will has been expressed in reasonably plain terms,
‘that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.’”
Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S. 564, 570 (1982)
(quoting Consumer Prod. Safety Commn. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447
U.S. 102, 108 (1980)). I “presume that a legislature says in a
statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there.”
Conn. Natl. Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-254 (1992).5
5 Whereas the majority opinion recognizes similar rules of
statutory construction, it does so only as to its interpretation
of the 2001 amendment, majority op. pp. 14-15, choosing to rest
its analysis primarily on this Court’s decisions in Fernandez v.
Commissioner, 114 T.C. 324 (2000), and Butler v. Commissioner,
114 T.C. 276 (2000). In contrast with the case here, however,
(continued...)
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