Opinion ID: 1293123
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the commission's judicial power

Text: Finally, WGL maintains that the Commission, acting as a court, has the authority to apply a changed ruling prospectively and thereby to limit its retroactive impact on taxpayers. WGL reasons that the Rogers letter withdrawing the earlier advice changed a former tax ruling and that the Commission, in the exercise of its judicial discretion, had the authority to limit the impact of that change to spot sales made after May 6, 1977. We disagree. We have held that the Commission, acting as an administrative agency, had no authority to grant tax exemptions on spot sales. Consequently, the earlier advice was not a valid tax ruling; the Rogers letter was not a changed ruling but, rather, an affirmation of the continuing applicability of the tax statutes; and the Commission had no judicial authority to suspend their application retroactively.