Tax Blog

The Supreme Court’s decision in Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research v. United States means that tax practitioners must be more sensitive to administrative law and judicial deference to administrative rules.  This includes gaining some familiarity with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the major cases that deal with judicial deference to administrative action, starting with Chevron USA Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc.  While the Supreme Court spends a lot more time considering issues of administrative law rather than tax law, the many ...

As Tax Blawg readers know, after the Supreme Court’s Mayo decision adopted the deferential Chevron standard for determining the validity of Treasury regulations (instead of the less deferential National Muffler standard that taxpayers preferred), taxpayers and practitioners have speculated that seeking to invalidate a regulation may be a fool’s errand.   Since Mayo, many of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (but not all) have shown a proclivity towards deference.  Extrapolating from these precedents, on the heels of the Mayo decision, it appears that the pendulum has swung ...