Cite as: 520 U. S. 821 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
vided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 76 F. 3d 961 (1996).
Entitlement to the immunity is the underlying substantive issue, were we to reach it. The Tax Injunction Act, however, is an initial obstacle, for by its terms it would bar the relief the PCA's seek absent some exception. Seeking to overcome the bar under the Tax Injunction Act, the PCA's, first in the trial court and now here, contended that they are instrumentalities of the United States and so not subject to the provisions of the Act any more than the United States itself. The first point is correct: PCA's are instrumentalities of the United States because the statute which charters them says so. 12 U. S. C. §§ 2071(b)(7), 2077. The PCAs' argument about what follows from the designation, however, is incorrect. Instrumentalities of the United States, by virtue of that designation alone, do not have the same right as does the United States to avoid the prohibitions of the Tax Injunction Act.
An observation is proper respecting our consideration of this threshold question. Although the trial court addressed the meaning and operation of the Tax Injunction Act, in the Court of Appeals the whole question seemed to disappear, though it goes to the heart of judicial authority. Neither party, we are advised, addressed the point and neither opinion in the Court of Appeals, majority or dissent, mentions it. While the question of the Act's applicability was not raised in the State's petition for certiorari, the United States, in an amicus brief in support of the petition, called our attention to the point. In granting the petition, we asked the parties to address, in addition to the merits, whether the District Court should have dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction in light of the Act. 519 U. S. 805 (1997).
We have interpreted and applied the Tax Injunction Act as a "jurisdictional rule" and a "broad jurisdictional barrier." Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Flat-head Reservation, 425 U. S. 463, 470 (1976). In dismissing
825
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