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choosing to use a definition different from the statutory phrases
we had earlier construed, the Congress apparently intended a
meaning different from the meaning of those earlier statutory
phrases, but the statutory text does not reveal specifically what
that difference is. The history of the legislation provides some
support for a specific answer, but that support is rebuttable.
Every Court of Appeals which has addressed the issue
presented herein has reached the same conclusion that the statute
is silent or ambiguous. Kikalos v. Commissioner, 190 F.3d at
797; McDonnell v. United States, 180 F.3d at 723; Allen v. United
States, 173 F.3d at 536 (describing the term “properly allocable”
as “manifestly ambiguous”); Redlark v. Commissioner, 141 F.3d at
940 (describing as “untenable” the “assertion that the words,
‘properly allocable’, unambiguously specify that interest on
business-related personal income tax deficiencies should be
deductible”); Miller v. United States, 65 F.3d at 690 (describing
Congress’s failure to “define what constitutes business interest”
as “an implicit legislative delegation of authority to the
Commissioner to clarify whether income tax deficiency interest is
‘properly allocable to a trade or business.’”); see also Tedori
v. United States, 211 F.3d 488, 493 (9th Cir. 2000) (stating
“‘the common and ordinary meaning’ of the statutory phrase
‘properly allocable to a trade or business’ is not at all
plain”).
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