-102-
the filing would be considered untimely (e.g., the “terminal
date” described by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
in Blenheim Co. v. Commissioner, 125 F.2d 906, 910 (4th Cir.
1942), affg. 42 B.T.A. 1248 (1940)).
II. First Question: Has Congress Directly Spoken to the
Precise Question at Issue?
If a foreign corporation files its income tax return on or
before the due date prescribed in section 6072(c), the return is
on-time. Moreover, no provision of subtitle F deprives a
foreign corporation of the benefit of deductions claimed on a
return simply because the return was not on-time. Indeed, in
Anglo-Am. Direct Tea Trading Co. v. Commissioner, 38 B.T.A. 711
(1938), our predecessor, the Board of Tax Appeals (the Board),
held that section 233 of the Revenue Act of 1928, ch. 852, 45
Stat. 849 (a precursor to section 882(c)(2)), could not be read
to make an on-time return a prerequisite to a foreign
corporation’s having the benefit of deductions to which it was
otherwise entitled: “[I]f Congress had intended to deprive a
foreign corporation of its right to * * * [a deduction] if it
did not file its return within the time prescribed, we think it
would have said so.” Id. at 715 (emphasis added). Thereafter,
however, both the Board and the Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit acknowledged that the allowance of deductions to a
foreign corporation was a privilege, which should be terminated
at some point to assure the proper administration of the income
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