Huge IRS IRA related PLR fee Increase

Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Tue, 2016-01-12 19:41

The article speaks for itself. https://irahelp.com/slottreport/more-upcoming-ira-private-letter-ruling-fee-increases

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Permalink Submitted by Bruce Steiner on Wed, 2016-01-13 23:59

The change was cryptic. Compare § 6.01(4) of Revenue Procedure 2015-8 to § 6.01 of Revenue Procedure 2016-8 in which the provision for the reduced fees for rulings waiving the 60-day deadline for rollovers was deleted.

While I’ve obtained many private letter rulings, including private letter rulings waiving the 60-day deadline for a rollover, I continue to be surprised at how many people were sufficiently unsophisticated to miss the 60-day deadline for a rollover but then become sufficiently sophisticated to retain counsel to apply for a private letter ruling.

Permalink Submitted by Jose Morales on Fri, 2016-01-15 00:58

I had one customer obtain a favorable private letter ruling for a waiver of the 60 day rollover deadline using the very popular “financial institution error.” It was amusing to read considering the fact that no such error on our part had occurred and left me to wonder how far the IRS goes to determine the validity of the claims that are made in these ruling requests. I certainly was never contacted to provide either a statement or data to substantiate the customer’s claim. In fact I had very concrete proof that the customer’s actions were deliberate and he had no valid reason for claiming there was any such error on anyone’s part for not rolling over funds that he had withdrawn from the account.

Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Fri, 2016-01-15 04:33

I think this customer approach will be getting even more common place as a result of PLR fee increase. Since most rollover PLR requests will now be prohibitive due to cost, taxpayers will be trying to shoe horn their late rollovers into the “automatic waiver” category (see Pub 590 A, p 23). There are 5 requirements that boil down “not my fault, all financial institution’s fault”. The IRS should be ramping up investigations of these claims if they even know the taxpayer will be relying on them. In most cases, the taxpayer will not be making these claims until an institution refuses to accept a rollover or the IRS somehow becomes aware of the rollover failure.