- 20 -
legislative purpose shows that Congress did not intend section
7479 to have the limited scope that respondent urges.
B. Respondent’s Arguments Concerning the Lack of
Judicially Manageable Standards in Section 6165 Are
Misdirected
In the absence of a specific statutory preclusion of
review,7 agency action may be determined to be “‘committed to
agency discretion by law’” only when a fair appraisal of the
entire legislative scheme, including a weighing of the practical
and policy implications of reviewability, persuasively indicates
that judicial review should be circumscribed. Estate of Gardner
v. Commissioner, 82 T.C. at 995 (quoting Local 2855, AFGE v.
United States, 602 F.2d 574, 578 (3d Cir. 1979)).
Respondent argues that because section 6165 provides that
he “may” require a bond, and provides no other conditions for
this authority, the decision to require security when granting a
section 6166 extension is “committed entirely to respondent’s
discretion.”
We rejected respondent's argument in the context of a
similar statute in Estate of Gardner v. Commissioner, 82 T.C. 989
(1984). In Estate of Gardner, the estate elected under section
2032A to value its farm at its actual use rather than its best
use. However, section 6075 required that the timing of the
7Respondent concedes that nothing in sec. 6165 expressly
precludes judicial review.
Page: Previous 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Next
Last modified: November 10, 2007