One of the more interesting cases from last year was Chamber of Commerce v IRS, where a federal district court in Texas invalidated temporary regulations that addressed inversion transactions. The case raised a number of interesting procedural issues, including the reach of the Anti-Injunction Act and the relationship between Section 7805(e) and the APA.
Not surprisingly, the government appealed Chamber of Commerce. Over the summer, Treasury issued final regs that were substantively similar to the temporary regs that the district court struck down, and then the government filed a motion with the Fifth Circuit to dismiss its appeal with prejudice.
Last month the Fifth Circuit granted the motion.
The outcome in Chamber of Commerce illustrates the difficulty that taxpayers face when challenging regulations for process violations (i.e., failing to subject guidance to notice and comment) and in particular challenges to temporary regulations. After all, Treasury can (and did in this case) issue final regs, and Section 7805(b) provides that those regs take effect retroactively upon the earlier of the “date on which any proposed or temporary regulation to which such final regulation relates was filed with the Federal Register” or “the date on which any notice substantially describing the expected contents of any temporary, proposed, or final regulation is issued to the public.”
Chamber of Commerce is to be contrasted with challenges to regs that focus on the substantive way that the regulations interpret a statute; for example, earlier this summer the DC Circuit reversed the Tax Court in Good Fortune Shipping.There, the DC Circuit applied Chevron Step Two and held that Treasury regulations that categorically restricted an exemption to foreign owners of bearer shares unreasonably interpreted the Internal Revenue Code. The taxpayer in Good Fortune challenged the reg the old fashioned way– in a deficiency case as contrasted with the pre-enforcement challenge in Chamber of Commerce.
Probably the most watched procedural case of the year, Altera v Commissioner, also tees up a procedural challenge to regs, and like Good Fortune is also situated in a deficiency case. One of the main arguments that the taxpayer is raising in Altera is a cousin to the challenge in Chamber of Commerce; that is the taxpayer is challenging the way that the reg was promulgated (and the case also involves a Chevron Step Two challenge). In particular, the issue turns on whether the agency action [the regulation] is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 5 USC 706(2)(A). Altera involves Treasury’s compliance with § 706 of the APA as expanded on in the 1983 Supreme Court State Farm’s “reasoned decisionmaking” understanding of the clause prohibiting “arbitrary” or “capricious” agency action.
As Keith flagged a few weeks ago, after the Ninth Circuit reversed the Tax Court and found that Treasury did enough in its rulemaking and held that the cost-sharing regulation was valid, the Ninth Circuit withdrew the opinion. The Ninth Circuit has now scheduled a new oral argument in Altera for October 16.
Stay tuned.