Oregon PacifiCorp Tax Ruling Bucks Loper Bright Deference Stance

The Oregon Supreme Court used a property tax case involving utility company PacifiCorp to require that courts give considerable deference to valid administrative rules, a stance seemingly at odds with a recent US Supreme Court standard for federal regulations.

The justices last week ruled that the state’s tax on the intangible property of centrally assessed businesses is constitutional, but that the Oregon Tax Court shouldn’t have given short shrift to a revenue department rule on how to calculate a property’s real market value.

The court held that rules “are essentially equal to statutes, as long as they aren’t in conflict,” ...