Court Opinion

ID: 9467022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:35:55.032515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:06.519313
License: Public Domain

FAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
While concurring in Judge Tate’s opinion for the court, I add this thought. Taxpayers should not have to “guess” at the meanings of statutory definitions. Prior to this opinion there is no way a reasonably prudent taxpayer could have anticipated this result unless he or she assumed Congress did not mean what it said. Such a situation is wrong and only highlights the need for improved draftmanship by all of those involved. Taxation need not and should not remain a mystery,1 or worse, a trap.

. As cited before in Rickey v. United States, 592 F.2d 1251, 1256 n.5 (5th Cir. 1979), I am reminded of Chief Judge Kaufman’s comment: “We have had occasion to note the striking resemblance between some of the laws we are called upon to interpret and King Minos’s labyrinth in ancient Crete.” Lok v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 548 F.2d 37, 38 (2d Cir. 1977).