Cite as: 513 U. S. 414 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
not on the last day of the withdrawal year, but on the "first day" of the next year, i. e., one year plus one day after the withdrawal charge calculation date. This choice of time (a year and a day) would be an odd way to signal that one is to treat the first payment as if it occurred at the end of a cycle.
B
The Plan (and supporting amici) make several arguments in support of a reading in which, for purposes of calculation, interest starts accruing on the last day of the year before withdrawal. But we are not persuaded.
First, the Plan argues that our interpretation works against the basic objective of the statute, requiring a withdrawing employer to pay a fair share of the underfunding. Under our interpretation, says the Plan, the withdrawing employer will fail to pay a year's worth of interest on the withdrawal charge, thereby requiring the remaining employers to make up what, in fact, was part of the withdrawing employer's fair share. Suppose, for example, that an under-funded plan needed exactly $20 million as of the end of 1980 to create a sum that would grow to just the amount needed to pay then-vested benefits falling due, say, in 1999. By the end of 1981 that same plan would need more money; indeed, if we assume the $20 million would have grown 7% each year, it would need 7% more to pay those same vested 1999 benefits. Thus, if the withdrawing employer's fair share of the $20 million is $3 million as of the end of 1980, its fair share must have grown to $3,210,000 by the end of 1981. Why, asks the Plan, should the remaining employers have to make up for this missing $210,000?
One answer to the Plan's question is that the $210,000 will not necessarily be missing. For one thing, until the employer withdraws, it will be required to make contributions that should contain a component designed to reduce under-funding. See 26 U. S. C. § 412(b)(2); 29 U. S. C. § 1082. For another thing, if a plan moves quickly, it may be able to force
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