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rules and regulations relating to our Federal tax laws, what are
the Secretary and respondent supposed to do? When the Federal
courts disagree as to the proper interpretation of tax law, is
the regulatory authority placed on hold? Must the public and the
tax administrator await an ultimate resolution of the issue by
the courts? What if the Federal courts remain in conflict,
without an ultimate resolution of an issue? Is the tax law, in
such a situation, to be interpreted differently in different
judicial districts? Are taxpayers to be treated differently?1
The Supreme Court recently addressed these concerns in Natl.
Cable & Telecomm. Association v. Brand X Internet Servs., 545
U.S. 967, 125 S. Ct. 2688 (2005). Therein, the Supreme Court
made it clear that the regulatory authority of Federal agencies
remains viable and in play even in the face of pending litigation
and decided court cases. The Supreme Court explained:
Yet allowing a judicial precedent to foreclose an
agency from interpreting an ambiguous statute * * *
would allow a court’s interpretation to override an
agency’s. Chevron’s premise is that it is for agencies,
not courts, to fill statutory gaps. * * * Only a
judicial precedent holding that the statute
unambiguously forecloses the agency’s interpretation,
and therefore contains no gap for the agency to fill,
displaces a conflicting agency construction.
* * * * * * *
1 Court conflicts over the proper interpretation of
statutory language provide perhaps the best evidence that the
statutory language subject to the conflicting interpretations is
ambiguous.
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