Cite as: 534 U. S. 84 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
We cannot accept the Tribes' claim. We agree with the Tribes that rejecting their argument reduces the phrase "(including . . . chapter 35) . . ." to surplusage. Nonetheless, we can find no other reasonable reading of the statute.
A
The language of the statute is too strong to bend as the Tribes would wish—i. e., so that it gives the chapter 35 reference independent operative effect. For one thing, the language outside the parenthetical is unambiguous. It says without qualification that the subsection applies to "provisions . . . concerning the reporting and withholding of taxes." And the language inside the parenthetical, prefaced with the word "including," literally says the same. To "include" is to "contain" or "comprise as part of a whole." Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 609 (1985). In this instance that which "contains" the parenthetical references—the "whole" of which the references are "parts"—is the phrase "pro-visions . . . concerning the reporting and withholding of taxes . . . ." The use of parentheses emphasizes the fact that that which is within is meant simply to be illustrative, hence redundant—a circumstance underscored by the lack of any suggestion that Congress intended the illustrative list to be complete. Cf. 26 U. S. C. § 3406 (1994 ed.) (backup withholding provision not mentioned in parenthetical).
Nor can one give the chapter 35 reference independent operative effect without seriously rewriting the language of the rest of the statute. One would have to read the word "including" to mean what it does not mean, namely, "including . . . and." One would have to read the statute as if, for example, it placed "chapter 35" outside the parenthetical and said "provisions of the . . . Code including chapter 35 and also provisions . . . concerning the reporting and withholding of taxes . . . ." Or, one would have to read the language as if it said "provisions of the . . . Code . . . concerning the taxation and the reporting and withholding of taxes . . . ."
89
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