Washington, DC, Defends Separate Deference Standard in Tax Case

A seminal US Supreme Court ruling from last year doesn’t affect Washington’s decades-old precedent giving administrative agencies deference, the district’s tax office told its highest court.

“The District’s courts are not federal courts” and the district has its own Administrative Procedure Act separate from the federal counterpart, the District of Columbia Office of Tax and Revenue said in a brief filed Monday.

The district government issued an emergency “clarification” amendment to codify deference to its own agencies after the US Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo gutted the Chevron doctrine. The 40-year-old doctrine required courts to defer ...