IRS Written Determinations
Free IRS private letter rulings, technical advice memoranda, and Chief Counsel advice with plain-English summaries and the official IRS release on every page.
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Using 401(k) funds to avoid foreclosure did not excuse late rollovers
An individual took distributions from two 401(k) accounts while she and her spouse faced medical and financial difficulties. She used the money to pay a second mortgage and avoid foreclosure, then rep…
Exemption revoked for inurement and cessation of operations
A religious organization received donations to publish daily devotionals and produce a television program. The IRS examination found that organization funds paid its president's personal shopping, hou…
Culinary training grant procedures received advance approval
A private foundation proposed grants that would let experienced young culinary professionals train at selected restaurants under mentors. Applicants would be evaluated using work experience, essays, r…
Employer-related scholarship procedures received approval
A private foundation proposed scholarships for children and grandchildren of a company's employees to attend colleges, trade schools, vocational programs, or certificate programs. An independent commi…
Research and language-study grant procedures approved
A private foundation proposed two programs supporting study in a foreign country. One was a one-year fellowship for U.S. doctoral students conducting dissertation research, selected for academic perfo…
Independently administered employee-child scholarships approved
A private foundation proposed scholarships for dependent children of longer-serving full-time employees of a company. A separate public charity would administer the program, receive applications direc…
Community-leadership scholarship procedures approved
A private foundation proposed need-based scholarships for students attending colleges, universities, or trade programs in one state. Selection emphasized community involvement and financial need rathe…
Historic-house restoration set-aside received approval
A private foundation sought to set aside a matching grant for a public charity restoring a historic house listed as a National Historic Landmark. The recipient had to raise the remaining project funds…
Historic-building restoration set-aside approved
A private foundation proposed setting aside funds for a matching grant to a public charity restoring a culturally and historically significant building. The grant would fund part of the roof and chimn…
Open-source media software group denied exemption
A nonprofit developed and distributed free, open-source tools for transcribing, indexing, editing, and remixing online audio and video. Its software could be used for any purpose, including commercial…
Pension minimum-funding waiver approved with conditions
A privately owned battery and standby-power manufacturer sought a waiver of its pension plan's required minimum contribution for the 2014 plan year. The company reported a temporary substantial busine…
Court clerks generally need not issue Forms 1099 for specified disbursements
Chief Counsel considered three information-reporting questions involving county clerks of court. A clerk that forwards garnished funds to a creditor's attorney is not the payor under sections 6041 or …
Ten-year captive excess-loss policies were not insurance
Related healthcare businesses bought ten-year excess-loss policies from a captive insurer owned by the same individual. The policies were priced before the parties set the attachment points, those poi…
S corporation termination from late ESBT elections was inadvertent
An S corporation transferred shares to eleven trusts for grandchildren, but the trustees did not timely elect to treat the trusts as electing small business trusts. That failure terminated the corpora…
Foreign entity received late disregarded-entity election relief
A foreign single-owner entity intended to be classified as disregarded for federal tax purposes but inadvertently failed to file Form 8832 on time. It represented that it was eligible to make the elec…
Foreign entity received late disregarded-entity election relief
A foreign single-owner entity intended to be classified as disregarded for federal tax purposes but inadvertently failed to file Form 8832 on time. It represented that it was eligible to make the elec…
Foreign entity received late disregarded-entity election relief
A foreign single-owner entity intended to be classified as disregarded for federal tax purposes but inadvertently failed to file Form 8832 on time. It represented that it was eligible to make the elec…
TRS investment did not amount to operating a lodging facility
A real estate investment trust's taxable REIT subsidiary proposed buying a nonmanaging interest in an LLC that leased a building from the REIT's operating partnership and planned to convert it into a …
Late REIT election received a 90-day extension
An LLC intended to elect real estate investment trust status on its first eligible Form 1120-REIT. Its advisor prepared both the return and an extension request, but the Form 7004 did not reach the ad…
Affiliated group received late consolidated-return election relief
A parent corporation acquired all the stock of a subsidiary and intended to file a consolidated federal income tax return for the acquisition year. The affiliated group did not timely make the consoli…
Late IC-DISC election received a 60-day extension
A newly formed domestic corporation intended to elect interest charge DISC status from its inception and relied on outside counsel to prepare and file Form 4876-A. Counsel sent the form and received a…
Refined-coal processes and emissions testing qualified for section 45 credit rules
A taxpayer leased and operated a facility that applied separate chemical-additive processes to coal used in cyclone and pulverized boilers, with the goal of reducing nitrogen oxide and mercury emissio…
Refined-coal process, facility relocation, and retesting methods approved
A taxpayer leased a relocated facility that applied two chemical additives to coal to reduce nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions at a coal-fired power plant. The IRS ruled that the product could be r…
Bank errors justified a 60-day rollover waiver
A retirement-plan participant instructed her bank advisor to complete a direct rollover into an IRA. The advisor instead deposited the distribution into a non-IRA account and then moved part of it int…
Financial-institution confusion justified an IRA rollover waiver
An IRA owner invested through annuity contracts that remained inside his IRA, but transfers among brokers and later financial-institution acquisitions changed the account naming and stopped the relate…
Care for terminally ill mother justified rollover waiver
A retirement-plan participant intended to roll a distribution into an IRA, but she spent the remainder of the 60-day rollover period caring for her terminally ill hospitalized mother. She kept vigil a…
Confusion did not justify an IRA rollover waiver
An IRA owner withdrew Amount 1 and deposited it in her savings account, then used Amount 2 from savings to pay off her mortgage. More than a year later, her son discovered the IRA withdrawal and said …
Adviser deposit error justified an IRA rollover waiver
After her husband, who had managed the couple's finances, died, an IRA owner met with an investment adviser to consolidate her retirement and taxable accounts. She deposited an IRA distribution into c…
VEBA may fund health benefits for active employees
A voluntary employees' beneficiary association held trust assets for retirees' health benefits. It proposed amending its trust agreement to add active employees as eligible participants and to segrega…
Pension elections impermissible, but mandatory pickups qualify
A state governmental defined-benefit plan asked about legislation offering Tier 1 members a one-time choice between different employee-contribution rates and benefit multipliers. The IRS concluded tha…
Reasonable reliance justified waiver of section 4980F tax
A manufacturer amended two money-purchase pension plans to reduce future employer contributions. Before the amendments took effect, it relied on its plan administrator to draft section 204(h) notices,…
Leased transport equipment fails chemical-security credit tests
A manufacturer and lessor of transport equipment claimed the section 45O agricultural-chemical security credit for repair-shop and manufacturing costs. The IRS declined to decide whether the subsidiar…
Processing limit still applies to agricultural commodities
A controlled foreign corporation bought an agricultural raw material, had a related foreign corporation manufacture a finished product, and sold the product to a related U.S. corporation. The taxpayer…
Paver trucks and trailers are taxable highway vehicles
A manufacturer sold truck- and trailer-mounted pavers that carried resurfacing materials from local storage sites to jobsites, mixed or continually agitated the materials, and spread them on pavement.…
Professional's omission justified late GST election
A grantor created four trusts for siblings, but the accountant omitted the gifts from the grantor's gift-tax return and therefore failed to elect out of automatic generation-skipping transfer exemptio…
Professional reliance justified late CNOL carryback election
The common parent of a consolidated group missed the deadline to elect an extended carryback period for a consolidated net operating loss. Affidavits showed that the parent had reasonably relied on a …
Transmission-upgrade reimbursements are taxable CIACs
An electric utility built transmission interconnection facilities and system upgrades required to connect a privately developed project between two regional grids. The project owner reimbursed the uti…
Late section 831(b) insurance election allowed
A closely held property-and-casualty insurer intended to elect the alternative tax on investment income under section 831(b). Its first CPA filed an extension request but was later dismissed, and a re…
Late foreign entity classification election allowed
A foreign eligible entity failed to timely file Form 8832 to elect corporate tax classification as of its intended effective date. The IRS found that the entity satisfied the reasonable-cause requirem…
Beneficiary dispute does not extend annuity payout deadline
A nonspouse beneficiary timely chose ten-year payouts under two annuity contracts. Before either insurer made a distribution, another claimant's lawyer asked both companies to freeze payment while a b…
Like-kind exchange requires removal of ADIT balance
A regulated natural-gas utility exchanged distribution assets for storage and transmission assets in a transaction represented to qualify under section 1031. The utility had accumulated deferred incom…
Storage-asset exchange requires removal of ADIT balance
A regulated natural-gas company exchanged storage and transmission assets for distribution assets in a transaction represented to qualify under section 1031. It had accumulated deferred income tax fro…
Foreign regulatory trust is owned by its CFC grantor
A controlled foreign corporation established a foreign-law trust to segregate and conservatively invest assets required to support its regulated business obligations. A separate trustee managed the as…
State-law write-off does not require Forms 1099-C
A financial institution settled a consumer class action over legally deficient notices connected with deficiency balances. The court-approved settlement barred collection and allowed offsets against s…
Integrated business agreements qualify as like-kind property
A corporation planned two simultaneous exchanges of intangible contract rights. One group combined manufacturing and distribution rights for a family of products; the other contained distribution-only…
Lower-tier partnership may make late section 754 election
An investor acquired an interest in an upper-tier partnership that owned part of a lower-tier partnership. The upper-tier partnership timely elected under section 754, but the lower-tier partnership i…
Late section 754 election allowed for lower-tier partnership
An investor acquired an interest in an upper-tier partnership that held an interest in a lower-tier partnership. The upper-tier partnership timely made a section 754 election, but the lower-tier partn…
Formula-rate projections require deferred-tax proration
An electric-transmission utility used annual formula rates based on projected service-year costs, followed by a true-up to actual results. The IRS approved its use of 13-month plant and depreciation a…
Late reverse-QTIP and trust-severance elections allowed
An estate elected QTIP treatment for a marital trust but, relying on its attorney, did not make a reverse-QTIP election or allocate the decedent's available generation-skipping transfer exemption. The…
Annual employee transit cards qualify for monthly exclusion
A city bought discounted annual, nontransferable transit smart cards for every employee. The cards worked only on the regional transit authority's systems and were deactivated when an employee became …
Missing QSST elections caused inadvertent S termination
Four trusts acquired shares of an S corporation, but their beneficiaries failed to timely elect qualified subchapter S trust treatment. That made the trusts ineligible shareholders and terminated the …
Adviser error justified late section 754 election
A partnership sought extra time to make a section 754 election after one of its members died. The partnership had relied on its tax adviser, who inadvertently failed to include the election with the r…
Trust settlement avoided transfer taxes and recognized gain
A family settled litigation over the administration and interpretation of a trust created by a person who died before September 25, 1985. The court-approved agreement divided the trust into one trust …
Trust settlement avoided transfer taxes and recognized gain
A family settled litigation over the administration and interpretation of a trust created by a person who died before September 25, 1985. The court-approved agreement divided the trust into one trust …
Trust settlement avoided transfer taxes and recognized gain
A family settled litigation over the administration and interpretation of a trust created by a person who died before September 25, 1985. The court-approved agreement divided the trust into one trust …
Trust settlement avoided transfer taxes and recognized gain
A family settled litigation over the administration and interpretation of a trust created by a person who died before September 25, 1985. The court-approved agreement divided the trust into one trust …
Trust settlement avoided transfer taxes and recognized gain
A family settled litigation over the administration and interpretation of a trust created by a person who died before September 25, 1985. The court-approved agreement divided the trust into one trust …
Trust settlement avoided transfer taxes and recognized gain
A family settled litigation over the administration and interpretation of a trust created by a person who died before September 25, 1985. The court-approved agreement divided the trust into one trust …
CPA filing error justified late original Form 3115
A business decided to change how it identified and allocated inventory costs under section 263A. Its CPA timely sent the IRS the required copy of Form 3115 and reflected the change on the business’s r…
Missing mailing proof justified late TRS election
A corporation intending to elect REIT status and an indirectly owned subsidiary planned to file Form 8875 so the subsidiary would be treated as a taxable REIT subsidiary. Their adviser prepared and si…
What these documents are
- Private letter rulings (PLRs): A taxpayer asked the IRS to rule on a planned transaction before doing it. The ruling shows exactly how the IRS applied the Code to those facts.
- Technical advice memoranda (TAMs): The IRS National Office answering a question raised during an audit or other proceeding.
- Chief Counsel advice (CCAs): IRS lawyers advising their own field staff on how to apply the law.
- Determination letters: Rulings on exempt-organization matters, such as whether an organization qualifies under § 501(c)(3) or a foundation's grant procedures pass § 4945.
- Not precedent, still useful: Under 26 U.S.C. § 6110(k)(3) none of these can be cited as precedent. They remain the best public window into how the IRS actually rules on facts like yours, and practitioners read them for exactly that.