Prof. Hickman Quoted in Wall Street Journal on Altera Cert Denial

Professor Kristin Hickman was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article, “Supreme Court Declines to Hear Tech Challenge to IRS Rules,” regarding the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in Altera Corp. & Subs. v. Commissioner, a tax case concerning whether cost-sharing regulations interpreting the Internal Revenue Code were invalid under the State Farm doctrine of administrative law for inadequately explaining the government's reasons for adopting the regulations. The United States Tax Court relied in part on Prof. Hickman’s work regarding tax regulatory practices when it invalidated the regulations on State Farm grounds. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the Tax Court’s decision but did not dispute the applicability of the State Farm standard. In reporting the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in the case, the article quoted Prof. Hickman as observing that, irrespective of the outcome, the case stands for the proposition that the courts will evaluate tax regulations using the same administrative law standards as apply to other agencies, and as a result, “[t]he IRS and Treasury will need to be more thorough in drafting their regulatory preambles to explain the choices that they are making when they are exercising discretion.”