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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Erroneous IRA withdrawal receives rollover deadline waiver
A taxpayer asked her financial adviser to move money from a personal account to her checking account, but the adviser's company mistakenly distributed the money from her IRA. She did not discover the …
Unauthorized inherited IRA transfer receives rollover waiver
A surviving spouse was the primary beneficiary of her deceased husband's Roth IRA. A financial adviser directed the bank to transfer the IRA to her trust without her authorization, without signed pape…
Unsupported postal-error claim does not justify rollover waiver
A taxpayer tried to move IRA assets to a new custodian by mailing the new custodian's account-transfer form from his residential mailbox. He later learned that the new custodian had never received the…
Extended testing period for otherwise excludable employees allowed
Chief Counsel advised that an employer may treat an early-participating employee as an “otherwise excludable employee” beyond the date the employee reaches age 21 and completes one year of service. Th…
Spouses receive different IRA rollover waiver results
A married couple withdrew funds from separate SEP-IRAs and deposited them into ordinary bank accounts while believing the new accounts were tax deferred. One spouse used part of the funds for living e…
Health issues justify late IRA rollover
A taxpayer withdrew funds from an IRA intending to roll them into another IRA. During a demanding period after a divorce and business purchase, she experienced sleep difficulty, anxiety, exhaustion, a…
Sole heir spouse may roll estate-held IRAs into her own accounts
A decedent's IRA and Roth IRA became payable to his estate because the named beneficiary had already died. His surviving spouse was both the estate's sole heir and its administrator, with unrestricted…
Pension plan receives approval for substitute mortality tables
A defined benefit pension plan requested permission to use substitute mortality tables for its healthy and disabled male and female populations. The IRS concluded that the submitted rates sufficiently…
Medical condition supports late IRA rollover waiver
A taxpayer surrendered an IRA annuity, and its value was mistakenly deposited into her ordinary checking account. A serious medical condition impaired her ability to manage her finances, and an adviso…
Unknown IRA escheat supports rollover waiver
A bank transferred an inactive IRA to a state's unclaimed-property program without the taxpayer's knowledge and sent part of the amount to the IRS as withholding. The taxpayer discovered the transfer …
Unauthorized in-kind IRA distribution receives rollover waiver
An IRA held a promissory note and a small cash account used to pay administrative fees. After the cash was exhausted, the sponsor made an unexpected and unauthorized in-kind distribution of the note w…
Brokerage withdrawal error receives IRA rollover waiver
A taxpayer requested a distribution from his ordinary brokerage account, but the financial institution mistakenly distributed the same amount from his IRA. The institution acknowledged its mistake and…
Medical impairment supports late IRA rollover waiver
A taxpayer withdrew the full balance of her IRA after a serious medical event left her physically and mentally impaired. She deposited the net distribution in a non-IRA bank account but did not comple…
Adviser error supports late IRA rollover waiver
A taxpayer surrendered an IRA annuity after his financial adviser incorrectly treated it as a non-IRA annuity in which the taxpayer had basis. Following the adviser's advice, the net proceeds were dep…
Death within rollover period supports IRA waiver
An IRA owner withdrew an amount and died after a sudden brief illness before the 60-day rollover period expired. The owner's will appointed an executrix, and submitted documentation indicated that the…
Wrong-account deposit receives IRA rollover waiver
A taxpayer instructed a financial institution to roll funds from one IRA into another IRA at the same institution. The institution instead deposited the funds into a non-IRA account. After the taxpaye…
Brokerage deposit error supports IRA rollover waiver
A taxpayer directed a check from one IRA to a clearing firm for the benefit of the taxpayer's IRA at a new company. Contrary to those instructions, the company deposited the funds in the taxpayer's no…
Misrouted plan stock receives rollover waiver
A retiring employee received employer-plan stock that he intended to keep in a retirement account at the same financial institution. A miscommunication caused the shares to be placed in a non-IRA brok…
Pension medical account may reimburse another retiree group
A company had excess assets in a section 401(h) account used to pay medical costs for one grandfathered group of retirees. It proposed amending its plans so that the account could also reimburse quali…
Taxpayer receives a waiver for a late IRA rollover
A taxpayer's IRA custodian liquidated her account after unpaid fees, but she did not receive a check and was unaware that a distribution had occurred. She later learned of the distribution from a Form…
Taxpayer receives a waiver after a bank misdirects rollover funds
A taxpayer directed that her final employee stock ownership plan balance be rolled directly into an IRA. Although the distribution check was payable to a bank for the benefit of her IRA, the bank depo…
Pension plan may use substitute mortality tables for up to 10 years
A pension plan asked to use substitute mortality tables for its non-disabled male and female participants when making minimum-funding computations. The IRS found that the submitted rates sufficiently …
Rollover deadline waived after required notice was omitted
A former employee received a retirement plan distribution after terminating employment and missed the 60-day rollover deadline. The plan's financial institution said it had mailed an instruction lette…
Multiemployer plan receives a five-year funding extension
A multiemployer plan requested more time to amortize specified unfunded liabilities. The IRS approved a five-year automatic extension under section 431(d)(1). The plan's actuary certified that the pla…
Plan may use substitute male mortality tables
A single-employer defined benefit plan asked to use substitute mortality tables for its male population when making computations under section 430. The IRS approved the request for up to ten years beg…
Surviving spouse receives waiver for late IRA rollover
A surviving spouse's late husband's IRA named his estate as beneficiary, and the estate passed to a trust for which she was sole trustee and beneficiary. She had authority to distribute the IRA assets…
Municipal pension contributions receive pick-up treatment
A municipal employer required active participants to contribute a fixed percentage of compensation to its governmental retirement plan. An ordinance adopted before the relevant pay period stated that …
Defined benefit and contribution lump sums may be aggregated for testing
A company maintained a closed defined benefit plan and a defined contribution plan and wanted to aggregate them for coverage and nondiscrimination testing. Both plans offered vested participants a sin…
Surviving spouse receives a 60-day IRA rollover waiver
A surviving spouse received a distribution from her deceased spouse's individual retirement annuity and deposited it in a non-IRA bank account. She and her investment adviser had believed the annuity …
Incorrect 90-day advice supports an IRA rollover waiver
A taxpayer transferred money from a SEP-IRA to a savings account while considering an office purchase. A financial institution employee told him that he could redeposit the money within 90 days, but t…
Dementia and hospitalization support a post-death IRA rollover waiver
An IRA owner withdrew money from several IRAs while experiencing diminished mental capacity and then was hospitalized during the 60-day rollover period. A physician stated that she had non-reversible …
Financial institution error does not defeat a retirement plan rollover
A retirement plan participant received a check payable to a financial institution for his benefit and marked it for deposit into his IRA. The institution instead placed the money in a non-IRA account …
Discounted stock option triggered section 409A income
Chief Counsel rejected taxpayers' arguments against proposed adjustments for a stock option granted with an exercise price below fair market value. The stock was readily tradable on an established ove…
Financial institution error qualifies for rollover waiver
An individual intended to roll an IRA distribution into another IRA, but the receiving institution placed the funds in a non-IRA account. The error traced back to transaction forms that another financ…
Medical condition qualifies for rollover waiver
An individual withdrew funds from an IRA intending to roll them into another IRA. During and before the rollover period, she was undergoing cancer treatment, including surgery, radiation therapy, foll…
Mandatory pension contributions qualify for pickup treatment, elective contributions do not
A city asked whether additional employee contributions to two governmental retirement plans could be treated as employer contributions under IRC § 414(h)(2). The IRS ruled that mandatory contributions…
Unused vacation may fund a 401(k) plan or retiree health account
An employer proposed allowing collectively bargained employees to make an advance, irrevocable election to direct the value of forfeitable unused vacation to a 401(k) plan, a retiree health reimbursem…
Business unit satisfies qualified separate-line scrutiny
An employer asked to treat one business unit as a qualified separate line of business for employee-benefit testing under IRC § 414(r). The unit met the basic line-of-business, organizational, and 50-e…
Church university retirement plans qualify as church plans
A tax-exempt university affiliated with a church requested church-plan status for two retirement plans maintained for its employees. A religious organization was the university's sole member, appointe…
Sixty-day IRA rollover waiver denied for unsupported bank error
An IRA owner withdrew an amount from an IRA and did not return it to an IRA within 60 days. He said he mistakenly believed the withdrawal was required, was not advised by the bank about the tax conseq…
IRS denies waiver for missed plan-loan rollover deadline
A former employee's retirement-plan loan went into default after automatic bank transfers stopped, causing the unpaid balance to be treated as a distribution. She sought a waiver of the 60-day rollove…
Mental incapacity supports late retirement rollover relief
A 75-year-old retiree received distributions from two qualified plans that were deposited in a nonretirement savings account. She missed the 60-day rollover deadline while experiencing physical and co…
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.