Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2012
Journal Title
Yale Law Journal Forum
Abstract
In view of the billions of dollars and enormous effort that might otherwise be wasted, the public interest will be best served if the Supreme Court of the United States decides the present challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) during its October 2011 Term. Potentially standing in the way, however, is the federal Tax Anti-Injunction Act (TAIA), which bars any “suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax.” The dispute to date has turned on the fraught and complex question of whether the ACA’s exaction for being uninsured qualifies as a “tax” for purposes of the TAIA. We argue that the Supreme Court need not resolve this issue because the TAIA does not apply for a distinct reason: the present challenges to the ACA do not have “the purpose” of restraining tax assessment or collection. In order for the TAIA not to bar refund suits, the TAIA must be read to bar suits with the immediate purpose of restraining tax assessment or collection. The present challenges do not have such an immediate purpose because the very authority to assess or collect will not exist until long after the litigation is concluded. Among other virtues, this resolution of the TAIA question does not predetermine whether the tax power justifies the minimum coverage provision.
First Page
389
Last Page
411
Num Pages
23
Volume Number
121
Publisher
Yale Law School
Recommended Citation
Michael C. Dorf & Neil S. Siegel,
“Early-Bird Special” Indeed!: Why the Tax Anti-Injunction Act Permits the Present Challenges to the Minimum Coverage Provision,
121
Yale L.J. F.
389
(2012).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/2258
File Type
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Legislation Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons, Taxation-Federal Commons