Court Opinion

ID: 9427082
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:41.812576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.812207
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
with whom The Chief Justice joins, concurring.
In addition to joining the Court’s opinion, I also join Mr. Justice Brennan’s concurring opinion addressing the question of retroactive application of the withholding tax. It seems particularly inappropriate for the Commissioner, absent express statutory authority, to impose retroactively a tax with respect to years prior to the date on which taxpayers are clearly put on notice of the liability. In other areas of the law, “notice,” to be legally meaningful, must be sufficiently explicit to inform a reasonably prudent person of the legal consequences of failure to comply with a law or regulation. In view of the complexities of federal taxation, fundamental fairness should prompt the Commissioner to refrain from the retroactive assessment of a tax in the absence of such notice or of clear congressional authorization.
As the Court observes, ante, at 32, in 1963 — the year in question — no regulation or ruling required withholding on any travel expense reimbursement, and the intimations were to the *39contrary. It can safely be said that until recently (perhaps until our decision this Term in Commissioner v. Kowalski, 434 U. S. 77 (1977)), neither employers nor employees generally had notice of the asserted tax consequences of lunch reimbursement. In short, as Mr. Justice Brennan’s opinion makes clear, the Commissioner abused his discretion in attempting the retroactive imposition of withholding tax liability.