After Loper Bright: A Practitioner’s Framework for Reading Treasury Regulations | Virtual 2026 Fall Tax Meeting

After Loper Bright, tax practitioners must evaluate Treasury regulations by independently analyzing their statutory basis rather than assuming that statutory ambiguity requires deference to Treasury’s reasonable interpretation. The panel will begin with principles of statutory interpretation and then examine recent post-Loper Bright tax decisions from the federal courts of appeals, the Tax Court, and the Court of Federal Claims. The panel will draw practical lessons from those decisions, including the importance of the statute’s best reading, the relationship between general and specific delegations, the continuing persuasive role of Skidmore, controlling precedent, forum considerations, and common advocacy pitfalls. The panel will conclude with a hypothetical exercise that allows participants to apply the framework.

Panelists:

David J. Present

Chief Financial Officer, Fantastic Indoor Swap Meet, Inc.

LL.M. in Taxation Candidate, WashU Law

Michelle Abroms Levin

Shareholder and Huntsville Office Managing

Partner, Dentons Sirote

Adil Khoso

Judicial Staff Attorney to Presiding Judge Terry A. Moore, Alabama Court of Civil Appeals

LL.M. in Taxation Candidate, WashU Law

Claudia L. Ignacio

Founder and Managing Attorney, CI Tax Law, Inc.

Adjunct Professor, California Western School of Law

SDCBA Tax Section Chair