Cite as: 532 U. S. 822 (2001)
Stevens, J., dissenting
achieved by the issuing of a Treasury Regulation resolving the ambiguity. Ibid. In this instance, however, the Secretary of the Treasury issued no such regulation. In the absence of such a regulation, the majority has scoured tangentially related regulations, looking for clues to what the Secretary might intend. For want of a more precise basis for resolving this case, that approach is sound.
It is at this point, however, that I part company with the majority's analysis. The fact that the regulations forward a particular method for calculating a consolidated "net operating loss" (NOL) for a group of affiliated companies, see Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-21(f), tells us how the Secretary wants the NOL to be calculated whenever it is necessary to determine a consolidated NOL, but it does not tell us what provisions of the Code require the calculation of a consolidated NOL. That is a separate and prior question. Even if we were to draw some mild significance from the presence of such a regulation (and the absence, at the time these returns were filed, of a similar regulation for the calculation of corporation-specific NOL's), the power of that inference is counterbalanced by the fact that the regulations listing deductions that must be reported at the consolidated level makes no mention of product liability expenses. See Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-12; see also H. Enterprises Int'l, Inc. v. Commisioner, 105 T. C. 71, 85 (1995) (construing Treas. Reg. § 1.1502-80(a) to provide "[w]here the consolidated return regulations do not require that corporations filing such returns be treated differently from the way separate entities would be treated, those corporations shall be treated as separate entities when applying provisions of the Code"). In addition, the subsequent promulgation of a method for calculating a corporation-specific NOL (albeit for a different purpose), see § 1.1502-79(a)(3) (defining "separate net operating loss"), demonstrates that there are no inherent problems implicit in undertaking such a calculation.
841
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