26 USC § 7528 - Internal Revenue Service user fees | Title 26 - Internal Revenue Code | U.S. Code

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 113-99. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

(a) General rule

The Secretary shall establish a program requiring the payment of user fees for—

(1) requests to the Internal Revenue Service for ruling letters, opinion letters, and determination letters, and

(2) other similar requests.

(b) Program criteria

(1) In general

The fees charged under the program required by subsection (a)—

(A) shall vary according to categories (or subcategories) established by the Secretary,

(B) shall be determined after taking into account the average time for (and difficulty of) complying with requests in each category (and subcategory), and

(C) shall be payable in advance.

(2) Exemptions, etc.

(A) In general

The Secretary shall provide for such exemptions (and reduced fees) under such program as the Secretary determines to be appropriate.

(B) Exemption for certain requests regarding pension plans

The Secretary shall not require payment of user fees under such program for requests for determination letters with respect to the qualified status of a pension benefit plan maintained solely by 1 or more eligible employers or any trust which is part of the plan. The preceding sentence shall not apply to any request—

(i) made after the later of—

(I) the fifth plan year the pension benefit plan is in existence, or

(II) the end of any remedial amendment period with respect to the plan beginning within the first 5 plan years, or

(ii) made by the sponsor of any prototype or similar plan which the sponsor intends to market to participating employers.

(C) Definitions and special rules

For purposes of subparagraph (B)—

(i) Pension benefit plan The term “pension benefit plan” means a pension, profit-sharing, stock bonus, annuity, or employee stock ownership plan.

(ii) Eligible employer The term “eligible employer” means an eligible employer (as defined in section 408 (p)(2)(C)(i)(I)) which has at least 1 employee who is not a highly compensated employee (as defined in section 414 (q)) and is participating in the plan. The determination of whether an employer is an eligible employer under subparagraph (B) shall be made as of the date of the request described in such subparagraph.

(iii) Determination of average fees charged For purposes of any determination of average fees charged, any request to which subparagraph (B) applies shall not be taken into account.

(3) Average fee requirement

The average fee charged under the program required by subsection (a) shall not be less than the amount determined under the following table:



	Average
Category
Fee
Employee plan ruling and opinion
$250
Exempt organization ruling
$350
Employee plan determination
$300
Exempt organization determination
$275
Chief counsel ruling
$200.

prev | next

(a) General rule

The Secretary shall establish a program requiring the payment of user fees for—

(1) requests to the Internal Revenue Service for ruling letters, opinion letters, and determination letters, and

(2) other similar requests.

(b) Program criteria

(1) In general

The fees charged under the program required by subsection (a)—

(A) shall vary according to categories (or subcategories) established by the Secretary,

(B) shall be determined after taking into account the average time for (and difficulty of) complying with requests in each category (and subcategory), and

(C) shall be payable in advance.

(2) Exemptions, etc.

(A) In general

The Secretary shall provide for such exemptions (and reduced fees) under such program as the Secretary determines to be appropriate.

(B) Exemption for certain requests regarding pension plans

The Secretary shall not require payment of user fees under such program for requests for determination letters with respect to the qualified status of a pension benefit plan maintained solely by 1 or more eligible employers or any trust which is part of the plan. The preceding sentence shall not apply to any request—

(i) made after the later of—

(I) the fifth plan year the pension benefit plan is in existence, or

(II) the end of any remedial amendment period with respect to the plan beginning within the first 5 plan years, or

(ii) made by the sponsor of any prototype or similar plan which the sponsor intends to market to participating employers.

(C) Definitions and special rules

For purposes of subparagraph (B)—

(i) Pension benefit plan The term “pension benefit plan” means a pension, profit-sharing, stock bonus, annuity, or employee stock ownership plan.

(ii) Eligible employer The term “eligible employer” means an eligible employer (as defined in section 408 (p)(2)(C)(i)(I)) which has at least 1 employee who is not a highly compensated employee (as defined in section 414 (q)) and is participating in the plan. The determination of whether an employer is an eligible employer under subparagraph (B) shall be made as of the date of the request described in such subparagraph.

(iii) Determination of average fees charged For purposes of any determination of average fees charged, any request to which subparagraph (B) applies shall not be taken into account.

(3) Average fee requirement

The average fee charged under the program required by subsection (a) shall not be less than the amount determined under the following table:



	Average
Category
Fee
Employee plan ruling and opinion
$250
Exempt organization ruling
$350
Employee plan determination
$300
Exempt organization determination
$275
Chief counsel ruling
$200.

Source

(Added Pub. L. 108–89, title II, § 202(a),Oct. 1, 2003, 117 Stat. 1132; amended Pub. L. 108–357, title VIII, § 891(a),Oct. 22, 2004, 118 Stat. 1644; Pub. L. 110–28, title VIII, § 8244,May 25, 2007, 121 Stat. 200.)

Amendments

2007—Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 110–28struck out heading and text of subsec. (c). Text read as follows: “No fee shall be imposed under this section with respect to requests made after September 30, 2014.”

2004—Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 108–357substituted “September 30, 2014” for “December 31, 2004”.

Effective Date of 2004 Amendment

Pub. L. 108–357, title VIII, § 891(b),Oct. 22, 2004, 118 Stat. 1644, provided that: “The amendment made by this section [amending this section] shall apply to requests after the date of the enactment of this Act [Oct. 22, 2004].”

Effective Date of 2003 Amendment

Pub. L. 108–89, title II, § 202(d),Oct. 1, 2003, 117 Stat. 1133, provided that: “The amendments made by this section [enacting this section, enacting provisions set out as a note under this section, and repealing provisions set out as notes under section 7801 of this title] shall apply to requests made after the date of the enactment of this Act [Oct. 1, 2003].”

Limitations

Pub. L. 108–89, title II, § 202(c),Oct. 1, 2003, 117 Stat. 1133, provided that: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any fees collected pursuant to section 7528 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as added by subsection (a), shall not be expended by the Internal Revenue Service unless provided by an appropriations Act.”

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Friday, May 3, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

top

General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

26 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

26 USC § 7528 - Internal Revenue Service user fees

U.S. Code Toolbox

Law about... Articles from Wex

Find a Lawyer

Get Involved