Cite as: 518 U. S. 213 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
state statute only "to ascertain whether its incidents are such as to constitute a tax within the meaning of § 64." Id., at 285. See also New Jersey v. Anderson, 203 U. S. 483, 492 (1906); New York v. Jersawit, 263 U. S. 493, 495-496 (1924). The Court later followed the same course when a federal statute created the exaction. In United States v. New York, 315 U. S. 510 (1942), the Court considered whether " 'tax[es]' " so called in two federal statutes, id., at 512, n. 2, were entitled to priority as "taxes" under § 64(a). In each instance the decision turned on the actual effects of the exactions, id., at 514-517, with the Court citing Feiring and Anderson as authority for its enquiry. 315 U. S., at 514-516. See also United States v. Childs, 266 U. S. 304, 309-310 (1924); United States v. Sotelo, 436 U. S. 268, 275 (1978) ("We . . . cannot agree with the Court of Appeals that the 'penalty' language of Internal Revenue Code § 6672 is dispositive of the status of respondent's debt under Bankruptcy Act § 17(a)(1)(e)").5
Congress could, of course, have intended a different interpretive method for reading terms used in the Bankruptcy Code it created in 1978. But if it had so intended we would expect some statutory indication, see Midlantic Nat. Bank v. New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection, 474 U. S. 494, 501 (1986), whereas the most obvious statutory indicator is very much to the contrary: in the specific instances noted before, it would have been redundant for Congress to refer
5 As the Court stated in a different context: "Although the statute . . . terms the money demanded as 'a further sum,' and does not describe it as a penalty, still the use of those words does not change the nature and character of the enactment. Congress may enact that such a provision shall not be considered as a penalty or in the nature of one, . . . and it is the duty of the court to be governed by such statutory direction, but the intrinsic nature of the provision remains, and, in the absence of any declaration by Congress affecting the manner in which the provision shall be treated, courts must decide the matter in accordance with their views of the nature of the act." Helwig v. United States, 188 U. S. 605, 612-613 (1903).
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