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Business Tax

IRS obsoletes old employment tax rulings

Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting  

· 5 minute read

Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting  

· 5 minute read

Rev Rul 2018-20, 2018-28 IRB 8

In a Revenue Ruling, IRS, continuing its program of reviewing Revenue Rulings published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin (IRB), has identified a number of employment tax rulings that are no longer considered determinative. Accordingly, these Revenue Rulings are declared obsolete.

List of rulings. In Rev Rul 2018-20, IRS obsoleted a number of Revenue Rulings that were published in the IRB. These Revenue Rulings that are no longer considered determinative because: (1) the applicable statutory provisions or regs have been changed or repealed; (2) the ruling position is specifically covered by a statute, reg, or later published position; or (3) the facts set out no longer exist or are not sufficiently described to permit clear application of the current statute and regs.

These rulings addressed issues arising under Former Code Section 3121(b)(8)(B) of the ’54 Code (which provided an exemption from Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax for tax-exempt organizations), and under Former Code Section 3121(k) of the ’54 Code (which provided for a waiver of the exemption). These ’54 Code Sections were amended and repealed by the Social Security Amendments of 1983 (P.L. 98-21, § 102, 97 Stat. 65, 70-71 (1983)).

The list of obsoleted Revenue Rulings include:

Rev Rul 55-470, 1955-2 CB 615;

Rev Rul 56-188, 1956-1 CB 485;

Rev Rul 58-270, 1958-1 CB 356;

Rev Rul 71-276, 1971-1 CB 289;

Rev Rul 74-415, 1974-2 CB 337;

Rev Rul 74-493, 1974-2 CB 327;

Rev Rul 77-159, 1977-1 CB 302;

Rev Rul 77-315, 1977-2 CB 355;

Rev Rul 78-7, 1978-1 CB 307; and

Rev Rul 80-337, 1980-2 CB 296.

In Rev Rul 2018-20, IRS stated that it would continue to review other revenue rulings relating to Former Sections 3121(b)(8)(B) and 3121(k) of the ’54 Code to identify those that, for the reasons stated above, are inapplicable to future transactions. Therefore, IRS said that the failure to include any particular Revenue Ruling in the above list should not be construed as an indication that the Revenue Ruling necessarily is determinative with respect to future transactions.

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