Opinion ID: 501656
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Is it a Tax?

Text: 58 We also find unacceptable MCI's argument that the twenty-five percent allocation is an exercise of taxing power that Congress has not delegated to the Commission, and that could not be delegated without violating the Taxing Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, Sec. 8. In Brock v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Auth., 796 F.2d 481, 489 (D.C.Cir.1986), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 1887, 95 L.Ed.2d 494 (1987), we warned that [t]he definition of 'tax' in the abstract is a metaphysical exercise in which courts do not have occasion to engage. Rather, a regulation is a tax only when its primary purpose judged in legal context is raising revenue. Id. at 488-89. There is no reasonable way to construe the NTS cost allocation as having the primary purpose of raising federal revenue. Cf. South Carolina ex rel. Tindal v. Block, 717 F.2d 874, 887 (4th Cir.1983) (it is not an exercise of taxing power, but of the power to regulate commerce, to exact deductions from sales of all commercially marketed milk to offset cost of milk price support program), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1080, 104 S.Ct. 1444, 79 L.Ed.2d 764 (1984). 59 As MCI has not cited any precedent holding that an agency's exercise of a power to allocate costs among state and federal jurisdictions for purposes of ratemaking is equivalent to an exercise of the power to tax, we adhere to circuit precedent and reject MCI's contention that the twenty-five percent allocation is a tax. 60