CCA 200850029: a business entered railroad coverage on its first payroll, in the second memorandum to use that trigger

Plain-English summary

A one page memorandum from the Office of Chief Counsel on the railroad coordination template, routed "CC:TEGE:EOEG:ET1" under control number "POSTN-137992-08", dated "date: September 08, 2008" and released 12/12/2008. 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".

This one adds a business to the railroad retirement system. The Railroad Retirement Board gave its opinion that the business "became a covered employer under the Railroad Retirement Act and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act effective" a redacted date, and Chief Counsel reaches the same conclusion under the tax statute, effective on the same redacted date, ", the date it first compensated an employee. Please take the appropriate action regarding this business."

The interest here lies in the repetition. This is the second memorandum in this release to fix the start of coverage with that exact phrase, the first being docs/2008/0850033.md. Two separate memoranda, worked under control numbers from different blocks and signed four days apart, reach for the same words to describe when a business becomes a covered employer. One instance could be a drafter summarising the facts of a particular business. Two independent instances point to a standard formula: coverage begins with the first payment of compensation, and that is how this office writes it. The point is about drafting practice rather than doctrine, since neither memorandum states a rule, cites a provision or explains why first compensation is the trigger. What the corpus can say is that the phrase is not a one-off.

The control numbers cut across the substance in a way worth recording. This memorandum carries POSTN-137992-08. Its substantive twin, docs/2008/0850033.md, carries POSTN-130209-08, from a different block entirely. Meanwhile docs/2008/0850032.md, which removes a business from coverage rather than adding one, carries POSTN-137996-08, only four away from this document and in the same block. So the batches were not organised by direction. An entry and an exit sit together in one block while two entries with identical wording sit in different ones. Whatever grouped these memoranda as they were worked, it was not whether the business was joining the system or leaving it.

The working date is also the latest in the group. This memorandum is dated September 08, 2008, while its companions in this release are dated September 04 and September 05. All of them went out together on 12/12/2008, which is a further reminder that the release sequence reflects the publication run rather than the order the work was done.

The template's division of labour is stated rather than implied. Counsel reviewed the Board's opinion and rested on "the information submitted to us by the RRB", reaching the same conclusion under the tax statute; the Entity Unit is left to act. The memorandum is signed "Janine Cook" above a rule, over an empty "cc:" line.

Identifying material is overstruck with runs of hyphens rather than replaced by lettered legend tokens, so the business name and its address survive as five dash runs and the effective date is a dash run in both places it appears. Unlike its twin, where a dash run collides with the following word and swallows the space before it, the overstriking here leaves the sentence intact and the text reads cleanly across the line breaks. This document came from a clean text layer rather than a scan, and nothing has been corrected.

The two absences that run through this group recur here and are recorded rather than repaired. There is no section 6110 disclosure paragraph, and the string 6110 appears nowhere in the document. No numeric Code section appears anywhere either: the memorandum names the Railroad Retirement Act, the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act and the Railroad Retirement Tax Act by title and cites nothing further. The index assigns UILC 3231.01-00, which points at section 3231, but the document never prints that section, so code_sections records that none was cited rather than importing a number from the index. The index subject, Employers v. Not Employers, describes this document accurately.

The citation check this corpus normally runs could not be performed, because the legal research tool is unavailable in this session. Nothing here requires it: the memorandum cites no case, no regulation and no numbered provision, and none has been supplied or corrected 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 first compensated an employee, and told 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: 200850029
Release Date: 12/12/2008
CC:TEGE:EOEG:ET1
POSTN-137992-08

UILC: 3231.01-00

date: September 08, 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 first compensated an employee. Please take the
       appropriate action regarding this business.


                                                             _____________________________
                                                                     Janine Cook

       cc:

```