IRS Updates Guidance on User Fees, Determination Letters, Technical Advice, and Ruling Requests

The Internal Revenue Service over the past week has released several pieces of guidance updating various employee benefit plan procedures and processes, including the process of requesting employee plans determination letters, annual procedures for employee benefit plans that need private letter rulings or technical advice, and user fees related to employee benefit plans.

Revenue Procedure 2014-8 is an update to Rev. Proc. 2013-8 providing guidance for complying with the user fee program of the IRS as it pertains to requests for letter rulings, opinion letters, determination letters, and similar requests on matters under the jurisdiction of the Commissioner, Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division.

Revenue Procedure 2014-6 updates the procedures for requesting employee plan determination letters from the IRS on the qualified status of pension, profit-sharing, stock bonus, annuity, and employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) under section 401, 403(a), 409 and 4975(e)(7) of the Internal Revenue Code. It also updates the process for issuing determination letters on the status for exemption of any related trusts or custodial accounts under section 501(a). The revenue procedure is effective February 1, 2014.

Revenue Procedure 2014-5 is a general update of Rev. Proc. 2013-5, which contains the procedures for technical advice requests for matters within the jurisdiction of the Commissioner, Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division. The revenue procedure explains when and how Employee Plans Technical or Exempt Organizations Technical issue technical advice memoranda to Employee Plans and Exempt Organizations Examinations area managers and determination managers. The IRS said that no significant changes have been made to Rev. Proc. 2013–5.

Revenue Procedure 2014-4 is a general update of Rev. Proc. 2013-4, which contains the IRS's general procedures for employee plans and exempt organizations letter ruling requests. IRS said that most of the changes to Rev. Proc. 2013-4 involve minor revisions, such as updating citations to other revenue procedures.