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Congress has devoted to the regulation during subsequent
reenactments of the statute. Id.
The language of the statute and the regulation is far from
clear. The dictionary definition of “depend” encompasses “to
require something as a necessary condition” with the example
“prices depend on supply and demand”. Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary 604 (1974). In this example, “prices”
depend on two factors, “supply” and “demand”, and so cannot
depend “solely” on either of them. Section 3121(b)(20) does not
use the word “solely”, which implies that the amount of the catch
is a necessary, but not exclusive, factor upon which the proceeds
must depend. The use of “solely” in section 31.3121(b)(20)-1,
Employment Tax Regs., suggests that proceeds must depend only on
the amount of the catch “to the exclusion of alternate or
competing” factors such as operating expenses. The definition of
“proceeds” encompasses proceeds after subtraction of operating
expenses. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1807
(1974); Black’s Law Dictionary 1242 (8th ed. 2004).
Logically speaking, uncritically applying the dictionary
definitions of these terms to the statute and the regulation
would lead to contradictory results. Because the statute is
ambiguous, we may use legislative history, see Patterson v.
Shumate, supra at 761; Fincher v. Commissioner, supra at 133-134,
to find the interpretation that can most fairly be said to be
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