Loper Bright Supreme Court Case and Implications for Tax Regulations

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Join us for an overview of the recent June 28, 2024 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overruling the Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. The Court in Chevron developed a two-part analysis doctrine of judicial deference to Executive Branch agencies where courts have routinely sustained agency regulatory interpretations of statutes as reasonable under the Chevron framework. In Loper Bright, Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his opinion overturning Chevron “[c]ourts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the APA requires [referring to the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946]. …But courts need not and under the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.” In overruling Chevron, the Supreme Court undoubtedly opens the door for taxpayer challenges to the validity of certain unwelcome Treasury regulations promulgated in the last several years.