WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service are seeking recommendations for items that should be on their 2015-2016 priority guidance plan.
The agencies use the plan "to identify and prioritize the tax issues that should be addressed through regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, notices, and other published administrative guidance," the IRS said in a notice released on Monday. The 2015-2016 plan will identify projects that Treasury and the IRS intend to work on from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016.
Recommendations should be submitted by May 1, the agencies said. They can be mailed to the IRS, hand-delivered to the IRS courier's desk or submitted electronically via the Federal eRulemaking Portal.
Taxpayers should briefly describe the recommended guidance and explain the need for it. They also can include an analysis of how the issue should be resolved. The IRS said it would be helpful if taxpayers who propose multiple guidance projects indicate which items should be prioritized.
The current guidance plan includes several items relating to tax-exempt bonds that have yet to be completed.
One of those is regulations on arbitrage investment restrictions. Proposed arbitrage regulations were issued in 2007 and 2013. One part of the 2013 proposed rules -- the definition of issue price -- was widely criticized by market participants Treasury associate tax legislative counsel John Cross has said that the regulators will repropose the issue price rules and give the public another chance to comment.
Another item is guidance about the definition of a political subdivision. This issue has become a particular concern since the IRS issued a technical advice memorandum in May 2013 arguing that the Village Center Community Development District in Florida is not a political subdivision that can issue tax-exempt bonds because its board does not, and will not, include elected officials.
The current plan also includes updating guidance about when management contracts do not give rise to private business use, as well as finalizing regulations on both allocating and accounting principles and public approval requirements for private-activity bonds.
Treasury and the IRS have completed four items on the 2014-2015 guidance plan. Those relate to temporary relief for declared disasters, accountable care organizations, arbitrage rebate overpayments and reallocations of new clean renewable energy volume cap.
When reviewing recommendations and choosing which projects will be included in the 2015-2016 priority guidance plan, the IRS and Treasury stated they will consider six factors.
The first is whether the recommended guidance would resolve major issues relevant to many taxpayers. The second is whether the guidance would promote "sound tax administration," the IRS said.
The third is if recommended guidance can be drafted in a way that taxpayers would be able to easily understand and apply. The fourth is whether a recommendation "involves regulations that are outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome and that should be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed," the IRS said.
The fifth factor the agencies will examine is whether the IRS could administer the recommended guidance uniformly. The sixth is whether the guidance would reduce controversy and lessen the burden on taxpayers or the IRS.
