Deference doctrines involve the extent to which courts, in their interpretation of statutes and regulations, should be influenced by how the agencies charged with administering these authorities construe them. Deference doctrine has received enormous attention in the case law and the commentary...

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...

Steve Johnson explains the conflicts exception to the reliance defense and analyzes whether, in normal Code Sec. 6662 situations, the taxpayer's actual or constructive knowledge of the advisor's conflict is an essential part of the conflicts exception

Positive statutory law -- principally the Internal Revenue Code -- is the most important source of tax rules. Despite its volume, however, the Code contains many gaps. Tax regulations promulgated by the Department of the Treasury are the principal vehicles for filling the most important gaps

The validity of regulations promulgated by the Department of Treasury is a principal battleground in contemporary federal taxation. So far, the clash has had two phases: establishment and implementation. Phase one entailed the destruction of the citadel of tax insularity, the bastion within...

The Supreme Court will soon consider challenges to the constitutionality of the so-called individual mandate portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA). It is important for the nation that the Court render a decision on the merits. This could be derailed, however,...

We are engaged in a two-part exploration. The previous installment of our column reviewed the perennial question of whether a given state or local exaction should be classified as a tax or something else. It rehearsed the contexts in which the issue has arisen in state and local tax...

One of the hardiest perennials in the garden of state and local tax issues is the question whether particular revenue measures should be classified as taxes or some other type of exaction. The issue has been dispositive in numerous state and local tax cases and, befitting that significance, has...