The Treasury Department has statutory authority to interpret and administer the Internal Revenue Code. Section 7805 of the Internal Revenue Code gives the United States Secretary of the Treasury the power to create the necessary rules and regulations for enforcing the Internal Revenue Code. The Internal Revenue Service, a division of the Treasury Department, is charged with the day-to -day operations associated with the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.
A tax regulation is issued to provide guidance for new legislation or to address issues that arise with respect to existing Internal Revenue sections. Proposed, temporary, and final regulations (or rules) are published in the Federal Register. They are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.).
Temporary and final regulations are initially published as Treasury Decisions (“TD”). TD's include an explanatory preamble, which can be a helpful source for legal research. In addition, the IRS publishes TDs in the Internal Revenue Bulletin. Final and temporary regulations are also printed under the heading Treasury Decisions (T.D.) in the Internal Revenue Bulletin (I.R.B),...and in the Cumulative Bulletin (C.B.). Treasury regulations have a unique numbering scheme which consists of three parts: a prefix before the decimal indicating the type of tax (e.g. 1 for income, 20 estate & gift, 25 gift tax, 30 employment, 40 excise taxes, and 601 statement of procedural rules); numbers following the decimal corresponding to the IRC section; numbers after the dash are the numbering scheme for the regulations.
Sample:
Treas. Reg. § 1.167(a)-1 is the first regulation on the income tax code section 167(a).
Special Bluebook Citation Rules:
Bluebook T.1.2, Department of the Treasury and Bluebook R.14, Administrative and Executive Materials.
The IRS provides guidance regarding the tax laws to the public through many different types of documents. Some of the publications supplement the instructions that accompany tax forms and others clarify how the tax law applies to a specific set of facts.
Sample Publications:
Revenue Rulings - Official declarations stating how the tax law applies to a specific set of facts. These rulings have precediential value for taxpayers with a similar fact pattern.
Revenue Procedures - Official statement by the IRS about the practices and procedures to be followed by taxpayers or by the IRS. Can be cited as precedent.
Article:
A comprehensive list of IRS guidance documents created by Tax Analysts.