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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CCA 200027005: Foreign corporations need timely returns to preserve deductions
Chief Counsel advised that a foreign corporation conducting a U.S. trade or business generally must file Form 1120-F, even if it believes no U.S. income tax is due. A corporation uncertain of its…
CCA 200027004: Dental X-ray machines do not qualify for disabled access credit
A family dentist claimed the section 44 disabled access credit for part of the cost of two dental X-ray machines. One produced panoramic images and the other could image patients standing, seated,…
PLR 200027003: Stock purchaser receives 60 more days for section 338 election
A corporation acquired all the stock of another corporation and filed returns as if it had elected section 338 treatment, but its tax professional failed to file the election. The IRS found that the…
PLR 200027002: Reverse QTIP election and deceased-parent rule prevent GST tax
A decedent's estate elected both QTIP treatment for a marital trust and the reverse QTIP election for generation-skipping transfer tax purposes. A court-approved settlement would end the marital…
PLR 200027001: Spouse's QTIP settlement has mixed income and gift tax results
A surviving spouse settled claims to estate property and agreed to sell her income interest in a QTIP marital trust to its remainder beneficiaries. The IRS held that property received in settlement…
PLR 200026031: Actuarial scholarship program receives advance approval
A private foundation proposed funding scholarships for college students majoring in actuarial science through a publicly supported charity that would administer the awards. The IRS approved the…
PLR 200026030: Hospital pension plan retains church plan status after affiliate joins
A church-affiliated hospital maintained a pension plan that the IRS had previously recognized as a church plan. A corporation owned jointly by the hospital and its physicians wanted to adopt the…
PLR 200026029: Foundation building set-aside counts as a qualifying distribution
A private operating foundation planned to build a facility to house and educate disadvantaged children. It had purchased a site but could not make much construction progress during its 1999 fiscal…
PLR 200026028: Public charity scholarship grants avoid foundation expenditure tax
A private foundation planned to fund a public charity's scholarship and fellowship program for students from groups historically denied higher education opportunities. The charity would supervise…
IRS bulletin 200026027: Bankruptcy cases and Chief Counsel collection advice
This April 2000 General Litigation Bulletin collects a lead article on a bankruptcy decision, brief case reports, and three Chief Counsel advice memoranda. The lead article says the Eleventh Circuit…
IRS bulletin 200026026: Bankruptcy decisions and collection procedure advice
This May 2000 General Litigation Bulletin reports bankruptcy decisions, short case notes, and three Chief Counsel advice memoranda. The lead article says bankruptcy does not shift a burden of proof…
CCA 200026025: Breaks and infrequent visits affect temporary work location status
Chief Counsel explained when travel from home to a temporary work site could be reimbursed under an accountable plan without taxable wages. Under Revenue Ruling 99-7, an assignment realistically…
CCA 200026024: Erroneous trust fund penalty refund needs refund recovery process
Chief Counsel considered an erroneous refund of a trust fund recovery penalty caused when the IRS failed to adjust one responsible person's account after crediting a payment made by another.…
CCA 200026023: Foreign treaty information request does not trigger third-party notice
A foreign government asked the IRS to obtain information from a U.S. corporation about a transaction involving a U.S. citizen it was investigating. The IRS planned to review the information against…
IRS bulletin 200026022: Criminal tax decisions and related case reports
This April 2000 Criminal Tax Bulletin reports recent court decisions rather than issuing a ruling to a taxpayer. Its tax cases discuss whether filing status is material to a false-return conviction,…
PLR 200026021: Bank receives more time to complete bad-debt accounting change
A financial holding company elected S corporation status and treated its bank subsidiary as a qualified subchapter S subsidiary. The bank had to change from the section 585 reserve method for bad…
PLR 200026020: Sewage pipeline bonds meet private business tests
A city planned to finance a pipeline carrying treated wastewater to a company's geothermal field and to potential irrigation users. It asked the IRS to rule that interest on the bonds would be…
PLR 200026019: Late S corporation election allowed after filing miscommunication
The shareholders of a new corporation intended to elect S corporation status for its first tax year. A miscommunication between the corporation's attorney and accountant left Form 2553 unfiled. The…
PLR 200026018: Late S election allowed after missing Form 2553
The sole shareholder of a new corporation believed its accountant had filed an S corporation election, but the IRS had no record of a timely Form 2553. The corporation and shareholder had filed…
PLR 200026017: Inadvertent S election termination after trust received shares
A trust received stock in an S corporation and later failed to make a timely qualified subchapter S trust election. The corporation's S election terminated, and the trust was later reformed by court…
CCA 200026016: Reinsurance premiums may include retailer's diverted commissions
A retailer sold insurance to its customers through an unrelated insurer that reinsured the policies with the retailer's wholly owned subsidiary. Chief Counsel said the available facts suggested that…
PLR 200026015: Utility financing order and note proceeds do not create immediate income
Following electric-industry deregulation, a utility planned to collect future transition bond charges from customers and finance its unrecovered costs through notes secured by those charges. The IRS…
PLR 200026014: Parent receives more time for two QSUB elections
A trust transferred the stock of two corporations to a newly formed parent, which intended to elect qualified subchapter S subsidiary treatment for both corporations. The parent inadvertently failed…
PLR 200026013: Public power authority remains governmental instrumentality for bond rules
A nonprofit power authority owned by public entities coordinated their electricity purchases, sales, and risk management. It asked whether it remained a governmental instrumentality for the private…
PLR 200026012: Voting and nonvoting shares preserve one class of S corporation stock
An S corporation proposed to exchange each existing voting share for one voting and ten nonvoting shares. The new shares would have identical distribution and liquidation rights, differing only in…
PLR 200026011: Voting and nonvoting shares preserve one class of S corporation stock
An S corporation proposed to exchange each existing voting share for one voting and ten nonvoting shares. The new shares would have identical distribution and liquidation rights, differing only in…
PLR 200026010: Estate's gift to charitable trust qualifies if preapproval activities complied
A decedent left the residue of her estate to a trust for a charity's benefit. The IRS recognized the trust as tax exempt after the decedent died, and the estate asked whether the bequest qualified…
CCA 200026009: Corporate partners determine FSC exemption fraction and dividend deduction
A domestic partnership owned a foreign sales corporation (FSC), and its partners were two domestic corporations. Chief Counsel advised treating the partnership as an aggregate of its corporate…
PLR 200026008: First-year S election allowed after attorney missed filing
The sole shareholder of a new corporation intended S corporation treatment from its first tax year, but the attorney failed to file Form 2553 for that year. The attorney later filed an election for…
PLR 200026007: Estate gets 30 days to make omitted QTIP election
An estate listed a bequest to the surviving spouse on its estate tax return but omitted the qualified terminable interest property election on Schedule M. It requested more time to make the QTIP…
CCA 200026006: Examination agreement was not a timely refund claim for another year
An insurer argued that its agreement to examination changes for two tax years also served as an informal refund claim for a later year affected by those changes. Chief Counsel advised that the…
CCA 200026005: Omitted guarantee fee makes foreign-party reporting form substantially incomplete
A U.S. corporation owned by a foreign parent paid that parent a guarantee fee in one tax year and claimed amortization deductions tied to the fee in the next. It omitted the payment from the Form…
PLR 200026004: QTIP trust distributions to grandnephews avoid generation-skipping tax
A marital trust was set to terminate after the decedent's surviving spouse sold her income interest as part of a court-approved settlement. Two remainder beneficiaries were the decedent's…
PLR 200026003: Sale of spouse's trust interest leaves QTIP election intact
After a decedent's estate made a QTIP election for a marital trust, the surviving spouse settled disputes with the trustee and remainder beneficiaries by agreeing to sell her trust income interest.…
PLR 200026002: Reverse QTIP election fixes transferor and protects grandnephew distributions
A surviving spouse agreed to sell her income interest in a QTIP trust, after which the trust would terminate and distribute property to a nephew's trust and two grandnephews. The decedent's estate…
PLR 200026001: Later nephew trust distributions to grandnephews avoid GST tax
A settlement would terminate a QTIP marital trust and send part of its property to a trust for the decedent's nephew. If the nephew died without living descendants, that trust would distribute its…
PLR 200025064: Frozen 401(k) plans retain cash or deferred arrangement status
Two 401(k) plans were frozen after their sponsoring employers' assets and employees moved into a tax-exempt medical foundation. Before a 1997 law change, tax-exempt organizations generally could not…
PLR 200025063: Long-serving charity employees may make 403(b) catch-up contributions
A charity serving senior citizens asked whether employees with at least 15 years of service could make additional elective deferrals to its 403(b) plan. The IRS ruled that the plan may permit the…
PLR 200025062: Surviving spouse may roll trust-directed plan benefits into her IRA
A deceased employee named a trust as beneficiary of two retirement plans. The trust terms required the trustee to use plan proceeds to fund a marital trust, and the surviving spouse could withdraw…
PLR 200025059: Hospital system laboratory services support medical education
Three tax exempt members of a health care system provided laboratory testing for specimens referred by doctors who contracted with another system member. Those doctors were not its employees, but…
PLR 200025058: Merger of employee benefit associations preserves exemption
An employer maintained two tax exempt employee benefit associations, one for medical benefits and one for dental benefits. It proposed to merge the dental association into the medical association…
PLR 200025057: Health research charities may merge without losing exemption
Two tax exempt charities that conducted health research and public education planned to merge. One would survive under a new name and continue their combined educational and scientific purposes. The…
PLR 200025056: Hospital system mergers preserve exemption and public charity status
An integrated health care system asked whether three mergers involving hospital and home health organizations would affect the organizations' tax exempt status and public charity status. The IRS…
Technical assistance 200025055: Puerto Rican service members may qualify for the earned income credit
The IRS National Office considered whether Puerto Rican members of the U.S. Armed Forces can meet the earned income credit's principal place of abode requirement. It concluded that a service member…
Technical assistance 200025054: Social Security and Medicare tax for school employees
A school district coordinator asked how Social Security and Medicare taxes apply to teachers and other school employees who work in multiple positions, retire and return, or work for another…
TAM 200025053: Further analysis of preferred stock redemption and claimed loss
This memorandum gives further case-development advice after a technical advice memorandum concerning convertible preferred stock and a claimed capital loss on later debentures. It says the issuer…
CCA 200025052: Guidance on daily travel to temporary work locations
Chief Counsel addressed questions about deducting employees' daily travel under Revenue Ruling 99-7. It distinguished daily trips from overnight travel and explained that trips between business…
CCA 200025051: Conditions for a proposed closing agreement with a Canadian company
Chief Counsel reviewed a proposed closing agreement involving a Canadian corporation and employees who worked in the United States. It found the draft acceptable in principle, but said the…
CCA 200025050: Property tax credits for senior workers count as wages
A state program let senior citizens work for municipalities in exchange for reduced property taxes and called them volunteers. Chief Counsel advised that the tax reduction is payment for services…
CCA 200025049: Secured promise to pay tax may outlast collection deadline
A field office asked whether the IRS could accept a promissory note secured by a couple's home in place of immediate enforced collection of unpaid tax. Chief Counsel concluded that such an agreement…
IRS letter 200025048: Prior truck excise tax ruling revoked
The IRS notified a taxpayer that it was reconsidering how an excise tax exception applies to trucks fitted with crane booms. A prior letter ruling had said § 4051 did not impose excise tax on the…
PLR 200025047: Isolated fund tender offer causes no deemed stock distribution
A closed-end investment company planned a tender offer to repurchase some shares, hoping its market price would better reflect its assets. It represented that the offer was an isolated transaction…
PLR 200025046: Isolated fund tender offer causes no deemed stock distribution
A closed-end investment company planned a tender offer to repurchase some shares, hoping its market price would better reflect its assets. It represented that the offer was an isolated transaction…
PLR 200025045: Late S corporation election accepted for first tax year
A corporation and its shareholders intended S corporation treatment from its first tax year and filed later tax returns on that basis. They relied on an attorney to file Form 2553, but the election…
PLR 200025044: Corporation may file late S election for its first tax year
A corporation with two shareholders intended to be an S corporation from incorporation and operated as one. Several years later, it discovered that its election had not been filed on time. The IRS…
PLR 200025043: Statutory payments in lieu of property tax are deductible
A developer leased land from a public authority to construct a mixed-use condominium building. The lease required payments in lieu of property taxes (PILOT) that state law imposed at the ordinary…
PLR 200025042: Active rental business income is not passive S corporation income
A property company with accumulated earnings and profits planned to elect S corporation status and treat subsidiaries as qualified subchapter S subsidiaries. It asked whether rent from commercial…
PLR 200025041: Missed S election may take effect from incorporation
A corporation decided when it was incorporated that it would elect S corporation status, but Form 2553 was not filed on time. The IRS found reasonable cause for the missed deadline. It ruled that…
PLR 200025040: Corporate split-off to resolve shareholder disputes qualifies for tax deferral
Shareholders disagreed about a corporation's management, so the corporation proposed moving part of one business to a newly formed company and exchanging all of that company's stock for one…
Criminal Tax Bulletin 200025039: March 2000 case summaries
The IRS Criminal Tax Division's March 2000 bulletin summarizes recent court decisions for informational purposes. It covers criminal tax liability, disclosure of return information, search and…
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.