CCA 200850028: a business entered railroad coverage on the day it began operations, the third trigger this template has used

Plain-English summary

A one page memorandum from the Office of Chief Counsel, routed "CC:TEGE:EOEG:ET1" under control number "POSTN-130162-08", dated "date: September 04, 2008" and released 12/12/2008. Like its companions in this release it runs from the "from: Office of Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel" for "Tax Exempt & Government Entities" to the "to: Director, Submission Processing" in "Cincinnati, OH", marked "Attn: Entity Unit", under the subject line "subject: Railroad Retirement Tax Act Status".

The Railroad Retirement Board gave its opinion that a business "became a covered employer under the Railroad Retirement Act and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act effective" a redacted date. Counsel reviewed that opinion, rested on "the information submitted to us by the RRB", and reached the same conclusion under the tax statute effective on the same redacted date, ", the date it began operations. Please take the appropriate action regarding this business."

That trigger clause is what distinguishes this memorandum. The template around it is fixed almost word for word across the group, but the phrase explaining when coverage starts is a slot the drafter fills, and this release shows the office filling it three different ways for entry alone. Here coverage begins when the business began operations. In docs/2008/0850033.md and docs/2008/0850029.md it begins on the date the business first compensated an employee. In docs/2009/00906004.md it begins at the start of the first year the business was both under common control with a rail carrier and performing services connected with railroad transportation. Three businesses, three different facts that mattered, and no explanation in any of them of why one test rather than another applies. The memoranda are notices of a conclusion, not a statement of the rule that produced it, and readers cannot work backward from these documents to the standard the Board applied.

Beginning operations and first paying an employee will often fall on the same day, but not always, and the office chose different words for the two cases rather than treating them as interchangeable. A business can be formed and operating before its first payroll. That the drafters distinguished these events suggests the underlying determinations turn on the specific facts the Board found, even though the reasoning is not reproduced.

The control number belongs to a third grouping. This memorandum carries POSTN-130162-08. The consecutive run 130207, 130208 and 130209 sits on docs/2008/0850030.md, docs/2008/0850031.md and docs/2008/0850033.md, and a separate block appears as 137992 on docs/2008/0850029.md and 137996 on docs/2008/0850032.md. This number shares the 1301 family with the first run but falls well short of it. So the release contains at least three clusters of working numbers, further confirming that the order of release numbers says nothing about which matters were worked together.

Identifying material is struck out with plain runs of hyphens rather than lettered legend tokens, leaving four dash runs where the business name and address stood and a dash run at each appearance of the effective date. The overstriking collides with the surrounding text once: the redaction run in the second paragraph is followed by a stray full stop, so the sentence reads "we also conclude that ----------------------------------------------. became a covered employer". The period does not belong there and no sentence ends at that point. This is a defect of the release process rather than of the extraction, it is reproduced as released, and nothing has been corrected. The same collision pattern appears in different forms across this group, running a dash run into the following word in docs/2008/0850033.md and swallowing the space after a comma in docs/2008/0850031.md.

The two absences that mark this template hold here as well. There is no section 6110 disclosure paragraph and the string 6110 appears nowhere in the document. No numeric Code section appears either: the memorandum names the Railroad Retirement Act, the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act and the Railroad Retirement Tax Act by title and cites nothing else, so code_sections records that none was cited rather than importing the section number implied by the index UILC of 3231.01-00. The index subject, Employers v. Not Employers, fits the document.

The citation check this corpus normally runs could not be performed, because the legal research tool is unavailable in this session. Nothing here depends on it, since the memorandum cites no case, regulation or numbered provision, and none has been supplied from memory.

Ruling snapshot

• Question: Did a business become a covered employer under the Railroad Retirement Tax Act, and from what date?
• Outcome: Advice given. Chief Counsel agreed with the Railroad Retirement Board that the business became a covered employer effective the date it began operations, and asked Submission Processing to take the appropriate action.
• Key authorities: The Railroad Retirement Tax Act, the Railroad Retirement Act and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, each named by title only. No numeric Code section, regulation or case is cited.

Full text (IRS public release)

```text
Office of Chief Counsel
Internal Revenue Service
Memorandum
Number: 200850028
Release Date: 12/12/2008
CC:TEGE:EOEG:ET1
POSTN-130162-08

UILC: 3231.01-00

date: September 04, 2008

 to:   Director, Submission Processing
       Cincinnati, OH
       Attn: Entity Unit

from: Office of Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel
Tax Exempt & Government Entities

subject: Railroad Retirement Tax Act Status

       In accordance with the coordination procedure established between the Service and the
       Railroad Retirement Board (RRB), the RRB has provided us with its opinion that the
       following business became a covered employer under the Railroad Retirement Act and
       the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act effective ----------------:

                -----------------------------------------------
       -------------------------------
       -----------------------------------------
       -----------------------------------

       We have reviewed the opinion of the RRB and, based upon the information submitted to
       us by the RRB, we also conclude that ----------------------------------------------. became a
       covered employer under the Railroad Retirement Tax Act effective ----------------, the
       date it began operations. Please take the appropriate action regarding this business.


                                                             _____________________________
                                                                     Janine Cook

       cc:

```