Law Commons^™

Preserving Fairness In Tax Administration In The Mayo Era, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

One of the dominant themes in contemporary federal taxation is bringing tax administration within the fold of general administrative law. In 2011, the United States Supreme Court unambiguously embraced this movement in the landmark case Mayo Foundation for Medical Education & Research v. United States, in which the Court held that challenges to the validity of Treasury regulations generally are governed by the Chevron standard to the same extent as are regulations issued by other administrative agencies.

There was an immediate and strong hostile reaction to Mayo in tax circles. Many fear that Mayo dramatically tips the balance in favor …

The 'No Surplusage' Canon In State-Local Tax Litigation, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

Previous installments of this column have examined numerous canons or conventions of statutory interpretation in their application to state and local tax controversies. This installment considers another canon: the precept that courts should prefer interpretations that render no part of a statute superfluous. A recent treatise phrased the principle thus:

If possible, every word and every provision [of an enactment] is to be given effect. . . . None should be ignored. None should needlessly be given an interpretation that causes it to duplicate another provision or to have no consequence.

The first part below describes the canon generally. The …

Home Concrete: After The Cheering, Problems, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Irrelevance Of Politics For Arbitrary And Capricious Review, Mark Seidenfeld

Scholarly Publications

This Article contends that, properly understood, judicial review of agency action under the reasoned decision-making standard precludes a court from considering political influence, but nonetheless allows an agency to consider it. It does so by identifying two fundamental attributes of such review, as courts have traditionally applied it, that have eluded scholarly focus and perhaps recognition altogether. The first attribute is that agency reasons, which are what courts review, are justifications rather than motivations for agency action. From this attribute, it follows that the irrelevance of politics for judicial review does not preclude politics as a legitimate agency consideration. The …