Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1472_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 10.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

during  the  time  the  suspension  . . .  is  in  force,”  but  “[t]he
Tax Court shall have no jurisdiction under this paragraph 
to  enjoin  any  action  or  proceeding  unless  a  timely  appeal 
has been filed under subsection (d)(1).”  §6330(e)(1).

Section  6330(e)(1)  thus  plainly  conditions  the  Tax 
Court’s jurisdiction to enjoin a levy on a timely filing under 
§6330(d)(1).  According to the Commissioner, this suggests
that  §6330(d)(1)’s  filing  deadline  is  also  jurisdictional.    It 
would  be  strange,  the  Commissioner  says,  to  make  the 
deadline a jurisdictional requirement for a particular rem-
edy (an injunction), but not for the underlying merits pro-
ceeding itself.  If that were so, the Tax Court could accept
late-filed petitions but would lack jurisdiction to enjoin col-
lection in such cases.  So if the IRS disobeyed §6330(e)(1)’s 
instruction to suspend the levy during the hearing and any 
appeal, the taxpayer would have to initiate a new proceed-
ing in district court to make the IRS stop.

We are unmoved—and not only because the scenario the
Commissioner posits would arise from the IRS’s own recal-
citrance.  The  possibility  of  dual-track  jurisdiction  might
strengthen the Commissioner’s argument that his interpre-
tation is superior to Boechler’s.  Yet as we have already ex-
plained,  the  Commissioner’s  interpretation  must  be  not 
only  better,  but  also  clear.  And  the  prospect  that
§6330(e)(1) deprives the Tax Court of authority to issue an
injunction  in  a  subset  of  appeals  (where  a  petition  for  re-
view  is  both  filed  late  and  accepted  on  equitable  tolling 
grounds) does not carry the Commissioner over that line.  If 
anything,  §6330(e)(1)’s  clear  statement—that  “[t]he  Tax
Court shall have no jurisdiction . . . to enjoin any action or 
proceeding  unless  a  timely  appeal  has  been  filed”—high-
lights the lack of such clarity in §6330(d)(1).

The Commissioner’s weakest argument is his last: He in-
sists that §6330(d)(1)’s filing deadline is jurisdictional be-
cause at the time that deadline was enacted, lower courts