The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations + Website, 2017 Cumulative Supplement, 11th Edition

APPENDIX A

Sources of Tax-Exempt Organizations Law

*p. 1057, note 24. Insert following existing text:

In general, Cummings, Jr., “The Supreme Court's Deference to Tax Administrative Interpretation,” 69 Tax Law. (No. 2) 419 (Winter 2016).

*p. 1062. Insert following third paragraph, before heading:

Level-of-Guidance Controversy. For more than 100 years, the Department of the Treasury and the IRS have issued guidance documents to help taxpayers comply with the federal tax law. These documents include, as discussed, tax regulations, revenue rulings and revenue procedures, notices, announcements, technical advice memoranda, and private letter rulings. This guidance is based on the statutory authorization extended to the Secretary of the Treasury to “prescribe all needful rules and regulations for the enforcement of” the federal tax law.^53.1

Some of this tax law guidance is published in the weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin. The U.S. General Accountability Office estimated that annually about 2,000 pages of regulations and other forms of guidance are published in the Bulletin.^53.2 Indeed, “Treasury and IRS are among the largest generators of federal agency regulations and they issue thousands of other forms of taxpayer guidance.”^53.3 It is the view of the IRS that only guidance published in the Bulletin states the IRS's authoritative interpretation of the law.^53.4

In addition to the guidance published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin, thousands of other documents that provide information ...