- 24 -
incorporated in an affected items notice and itself made subject
to review under the deficiency procedures before it can be
assessed. All the same, we apply the statute as written in
accordance with its plain reading and leave to the legislators
the job of rewriting the statute, should they decide to do so, to
take into account the situation at hand. See, e.g., Arlington
Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy, 548 U.S. , ,
126 S. Ct. 2455, 2459 (2006) (stating that “When the statutory
language is plain, the sole function of the courts--at least
where the disposition required by the text is not absurd--is to
enforce it according to its terms” (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted)). We do not believe that our plain
reading of the statute leads to an “absurd or futile result”, or
produces a result that is “an unreasonable one ‘plainly at
variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole’”. United
States v. Am. Trucking Associations, supra at 543 (quoting Ozawa
v. United States, 260 U.S. 178, 194 (1922)). To be sure, both
parties read the statute similarly in requesting the same result
that we reach herein as to the partnership-item penalties, and
neither party suggests that a plain reading of the statute in
this case is unreasonable, absurd, or inconsistent with
legislative intent.
Page: Previous 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Next
Last modified: November 10, 2007