Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2026

Abstract

In Learning Resources Inc., the Supreme Court held by a 6-3 majority that President Trump lacked the authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs. The main rationale was that tariffs are taxes and that IEEPA only authorized the president to “regulate” imports, not to tax them. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: But the facial breadth of “regulate” places in stark relief what the term is not usually thought to include: taxation. The U.S.

Code is replete with statutes granting the Executive the authority to “regulate” someone or something. Yet the Government cannot identify any statute in which the power to regulate includes the power to tax. The Government concedes, for example, that the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot tax the trading of securities, even though it is expressly authorized to “regulate the trading of . . . securities.” 15 U.S.C. section 78i(h)(1); see Brief for Federal Parties 31-32. We are therefore skeptical that in IEEPA — and IEEPA alone — Congress hid a delegation of its birth-right power to tax within the quotidian power to “regulate.”

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Reprinted with the permission of Tax Analysts.

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