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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Letter 6337 (202501014): Revocation of 501(c)(3) status for a dormant church that could not substantiate loan withdrawals, triggering excess-benefit tax
This is a final IRS letter revoking a small organization's 501(c)(3) tax exemption. To keep the exemption, a charity must be both organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes and must keep…
Letter 4038 (202501013): Exemption denied to a business-networking membership organization serving members' private interests
This is a final IRS letter denying tax-exempt status to an organization that applied under Section 501(c)(3). To qualify, a group must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes such…
Letter 6337 (202501012): Revocation of 501(c)(3) status for an inactive organization that failed to substantiate the operational and organizational tests
This is a final IRS letter revoking a charity's tax exemption. To keep 501(c)(3) status, an organization must be both organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes (the organizational and…
A short-term green card holder could not use a treaty to shed U.S. tax residency
A green card holder is a "lawful permanent resident" and therefore a U.S. resident who is taxed on worldwide income until that status is formally given up. This informal Chief Counsel email advice…
After a § 338(g) election, a subsidiary's pre-acquisition years are ignored for the worthless-stock gross-receipts test
When a company's stock in a subsidiary becomes worthless, the loss is normally a capital loss, but Section 165(g)(3) allows a more valuable ordinary loss if the subsidiary is an affiliated company…
Which address to use for a partnership representative's audit notice, and how to change it
Under the centralized partnership audit rules from the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, a partnership names a "partnership representative" who receives IRS audit notices on the partnership's behalf,…
Section 269 and the anti-abuse rule of Temp. Reg. § 1.245A-5T reach a check-the-box GILTI-avoidance transaction
This Chief Counsel Advice tells IRS examiners how to attack a structure a U.S. multinational used to keep eleven months of a foreign subsidiary's income out of the U.S. minimum-tax base on foreign…
Late relief granted to self-certify a partnership as a Qualified Opportunity Fund
A Qualified Opportunity Fund (QOF) is an investment vehicle that lets investors defer and reduce tax on capital gains if they reinvest in designated low-income "opportunity zones." To become a QOF,…
Consent granted to re-elect S corporation status before the five-year waiting period ends
An S corporation passes its income through to its shareholders instead of paying corporate-level tax, but only shareholders who meet strict eligibility rules may own its stock. Here a corporation…
Consent granted to re-elect S corporation status before the five-year waiting period ends
An S corporation is a small business that passes its income through to its shareholders instead of paying corporate tax, but only shareholders who meet strict eligibility rules can own its stock.…
Late relief granted to elect out of automatic GST exemption allocation for two GRATs
When someone makes a gift to certain trusts that could later skip a generation, the tax code automatically uses up part of the person's generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption unless they…
Consent granted to aggregate separate non-operating silver royalty interests as one property
A company that owns silver royalty interests, but does not mine or operate the properties itself, asked the IRS for permission to treat its scattered royalty interests in one region as a single…
Consent granted to aggregate separate non-operating mineral (royalty) interests as one property
A company that owns oil, gas, and mineral royalty interests, but does not drill or operate the wells itself, asked the IRS for permission to lump its scattered royalty interests in one region into a…
Partnership gets more time to make a late Section 754 basis-adjustment election
A partnership can file a "section 754 election" so that when partnership interests change hands or property is distributed, the inside tax basis of the partnership's assets is adjusted to match. The…
Foundation's scholarship and educational-grant procedures approved in advance
A private foundation that makes grants to individuals for study or travel normally owes an excise tax on those payments unless the IRS approves its grant-selection procedures in advance. Here a…
NIL collective for college athletes denied 501(c)(3) for private benefit
An organization applied for 501(c)(3) charitable status built around a "name, image, and likeness" (NIL) collective: it paid college student-athletes at one university to use their NIL for work with…
Gated homeowners association loses 501(c)(4) status for restricting the public
A homeowners association can qualify as a 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organization only if it serves a community in a way that benefits the general public, not just its own members. A long-running…
Exemption automatically revoked for filing 990-N while over the $50,000 threshold
Small tax-exempt organizations with average gross receipts of $50,000 or less can meet their annual IRS filing duty with a short electronic notice, the Form 990-N "e-Postcard." Larger organizations…
Civil-rights and blockchain-art group denied 501(c)(3) exemption
A newly formed nonprofit applied for 501(c)(3) charitable status, describing a mission to defend citizens' constitutional and civil rights through legal, educational, and social activities,…
Interest on a prevailing-wage correction payment is compounded daily
This is a brief internal email answering a compliance question about the prevailing wage and apprenticeship (PWA) rules, which certain clean-energy tax credits require employers to meet. If a worker…
Chief Counsel comments on a BBA partnership-audit training case study
This is an internal email and set of margin comments in which Chief Counsel attorneys review a training case study about partnership audits under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (the BBA…
Estate gets more time to make an estate-tax portability election
When someone dies without using up their full estate-tax exemption, a "portability" election lets the surviving spouse claim the leftover amount (the deceased spousal unused exclusion, or DSUE). The…
Late election granted to pass rehabilitation-credit expenditures to a tenant
The rehabilitation credit rewards owners who fix up certain older buildings. When a landlord owns the building but a tenant is the one that should claim the credit, tax rules let the landlord…
Late relief for a partnership to make a section 754 basis-adjustment election
An LLC taxed as a partnership went through a series of ownership changes: its interests were transferred to a newly formed partnership (briefly making it a disregarded entity), then interests were…
Partnership gets more time to make a late section 754 election after a sale
A company that is taxed as a partnership had a buyer purchase a large stake in its parent, a transfer that would let the partnership adjust the tax basis of its assets under a section 754 election…
Modifying a pre-1985 grandfathered trust will not trigger GST tax
A trust created before September 25, 1985 is "grandfathered," meaning it is exempt from the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax as long as it is not improperly enlarged or changed in ways that…
Modifying a pre-1985 grandfathered trust will not trigger GST tax
A trust created before September 25, 1985 is "grandfathered," meaning it is exempt from the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax as long as it is not improperly enlarged or changed in ways that…
Modifying a pre-1985 grandfathered trust will not trigger GST tax
A trust created before September 25, 1985 is "grandfathered," meaning it is exempt from the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax as long as it is not improperly enlarged or changed in ways that…
A contingent deferred annuity linked to a customer's own brokerage account is treated as an annuity under section 72
A life insurance company designed a new "contingent deferred annuity," a guaranteed lifetime income product that attaches to a brokerage account the customer already owns rather than to money held…
Late relief lets a foreign entity elect to be disregarded from its owner (companion ruling)
This is a companion ruling to PLR 202452002, involving a related foreign company. Like the other one, this foreign company wanted to be treated as a "disregarded entity" for U.S. federal tax…
Late relief lets a foreign entity elect to be disregarded from its owner
A foreign company wanted to be treated as a "disregarded entity" for U.S. federal tax purposes, meaning it would be ignored as separate from its single owner. To do that it had to file Form 8832…
Late relief lets an LLC change from a corporation to a partnership for tax purposes
An LLC had elected to be an S corporation, which under the check-the-box rules also meant it was automatically treated as an association taxable as a corporation. The LLC later wanted to switch to…
Student-athlete NIL collective denied 501(c)(3) exemption for serving private interests
An organization applied for 501(c)(3) charitable status using the streamlined Form 1023-EZ. Its stated mission was to help a school's student athletes use their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rights…
Foreign electronic derivatives exchange recognized as a "qualified board or exchange" under section 1256
A foreign, all-electronic derivatives exchange asked the IRS to confirm it is a "qualified board or exchange" under section 1256(g)(7)(C). That status matters because futures contracts traded on…
In-service employees age 59½ may draw 401(h) retiree medical benefits without disqualifying the pension plan
A company runs a defined-benefit pension plan that includes "401(h) accounts," a feature that lets a pension plan pay retiree medical benefits. It amended the plan to let employees who are at least…
Estate gets more time to make a missed QTIP marital-deduction election
When someone dies leaving property to a surviving spouse in a certain kind of trust, the estate can elect "QTIP" treatment under section 2056(b)(7) so that property qualifies for the unlimited…
Tax-free spin-off of a business into a new public company, with debt-for-equity exchange
A publicly traded parent company that runs two lines of business wants to split off one of them (Business B) into a new, separately traded corporation ("Controlled") and hand that new company's…
Surviving spouse may roll a deceased spouse's 403(b) annuities, paid through a trust, into her own IRAs tax-free
A man died at 73 holding several 403(b) retirement annuities through his employer. He had named a joint revocable living trust as the beneficiary of those annuities. His surviving spouse is now the…
Reasonable cause found for a late S corporation election
A newly incorporated company intended to be taxed as an S corporation (which passes income through to shareholders and avoids corporate-level tax) starting from a specific effective date. To get…
Limited partnership gets more time to make a late section 754 basis-adjustment election
A limited partnership had a partner (who held its interest through a trust) die. When a partnership interest transfers, a section 754 election lets the partnership adjust the tax basis of its assets…
Late relief to elect out of automatic GST exemption on eleven GRATs (companion ruling)
This is the companion ruling to PLR 202451010, addressing the other spouse in the same married couple. Here the taxpayer personally set up the children's trust and funded eleven grantor retained…
Late relief to elect out of automatic GST exemption on eleven GRAT transfers
A married couple set up eleven grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs) whose remaining property would pass to a trust for their children when the annuity terms ended. Because the trusts could later…
Two disregarded LLCs' education-and-workforce activities ruled charitable and educational
A 501(c)(3) public charity focused on connecting education to careers owns two single-member LLCs that are disregarded (treated as part of the charity) for tax purposes. It asked the IRS to confirm…
Late-filed Form 8996 treated as timely, self-certifying an LLC as a Qualified Opportunity Fund
An LLC taxed as a partnership was organized to be a Qualified Opportunity Fund (QOF), a structure that gives investors capital-gains tax benefits for investing in designated opportunity zones. To…
Late Form 8996 relief lets an LLC self-certify as a Qualified Opportunity Fund
An LLC was set up to be a Qualified Opportunity Fund (QOF), a vehicle that lets investors defer capital gains tax when they reinvest gains into designated low-income "opportunity zones." To become a…
Late election extended for a foreign entity to be a disregarded entity
A foreign business entity wanted to be treated as a "disregarded entity" for U.S. federal tax purposes, meaning it would be ignored as separate from its single owner. To get that treatment it had to…
Defective trusts that ended a company's S corporation status are excused after being fixed
This ruling closely mirrors PLR 202451004 (file reference PLR-105737-24). An S corporation's shareholder and his spouse set up two trusts for his children and transferred company stock into them.…
Defective trusts that ended a company's S corporation status are excused after being fixed
An S corporation's two shareholders set up trusts for their children and transferred their company stock into them. The trusts were meant to be qualified subchapter S trusts (QSSTs), which are…
A partnership gets 120 more days to make a late basis-adjustment election after a partner buys in
An LLC taxed as a partnership had one partner (A) buy another partner's (B's) interest in the business. When a partnership interest changes hands, the partnership can file a Code section 754…
A struggling employer wins a one-year waiver of its pension funding requirement, with strings attached
An employer that sponsors a defined benefit pension plan could not make its required minimum contribution for the plan year without serious financial strain. Code section 412(c) lets the IRS waive…
A foreign company gets more time to file the "check-the-box" election making it a disregarded entity
A company formed under the laws of a foreign country wanted to be treated as a disregarded entity for U.S. federal tax purposes, meaning it is ignored as separate from its single owner. That…
A charity whose funds paid for casinos, mortgages, and personal expenses loses its 501(c)(3) exemption
The IRS revoked an organization's tax-exempt status under Code section 501(c)(3) on two grounds. First, it failed the operational test: the group could produce no records showing it conducted any…
A charity that stopped operating and kept no records has its 501(c)(3) exemption revoked
The IRS revoked a small organization's tax-exempt status under Code section 501(c)(3). The group had been recognized as a public charity, but an examination found it had stopped operating: the…
An apartment partnership gets more time to elect out of the business interest deduction limit
A limited partnership owns and operates an apartment complex. Code section 163(j) caps how much business interest a taxpayer can deduct, but a real property trade or business can elect out of that…
A company gets more time to make the election that keeps a built-in loss from being duplicated
A taxpayer transferred property to a corporation in a tax-free section 351 exchange, but the property's tax basis was higher than its fair market value, meaning it carried a built-in loss. Section…
A foreign buyer that missed its deadline gets extra time to elect asset treatment for its stock purchases
A foreign company bought all the stock of several foreign target companies, each a controlled foreign corporation for U.S. tax purposes. Code section 338(g) lets a buyer of stock elect to treat the…
A fifth beneficiary of the same terminating trust gets the same favorable like-kind exchange ruling
This is another companion ruling in the same set as PLR 202450005 through PLR 202450008 (file reference PLR-105751-24), addressing a further beneficiary of one testamentary trust. The trust held…
A fourth beneficiary of the same terminating trust gets the same favorable like-kind exchange ruling
This is another companion ruling in the same set as PLR 202450005 through PLR 202450007 (file reference PLR-105750-24), addressing a further beneficiary of one testamentary trust. The trust held…
A third beneficiary of the same terminating trust gets the same favorable like-kind exchange ruling
This is another companion ruling in the same set as PLR 202450005 and PLR 202450006 (file reference PLR-105748-24), addressing a further beneficiary of one testamentary trust. The trust held…
A second beneficiary of the same terminating trust also gets a favorable like-kind exchange ruling
This is a companion ruling to PLR 202450005 (file reference PLR-105747-24), addressing a second beneficiary of the same testamentary trust. The trust held undeveloped land for investment and ended…
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.