SECTION 3. BACKGROUND

.01 Legislation authorizing user fees . Section 10511 of the Revenue Act of 1987, Pub. L. 100–203, 101 Stat. 1330–382, 1330–446, enacted December 22, 1987, directed the Secretary of the Treasury or delegate (the “Secretary”) to establish a program requiring the payment of user fees for requests to the Service for letter rulings, opinion letters, determination letters, and similar requests. The fees charged under the program (1) were to

2000–1 I.R.B. 231 January 3, 2000

described in this revenue procedure. Further, an administrative scrutiny determination user fees described in Rev. Proc. 93–41, are collected through the user fee program described in this revenue procedure. Requests to which a user fee or an administrative scrutiny determination user fee is applicable must be accompanied by the appropriate fee as determined from the fee schedule set forth in section 6 of this revenue procedure. The fee may be refunded in limited circumstances as set forth in section 10.

.02 Requests and other actions that do not require the payment of a user fee . Actions which do not require the payment of a user fee include the following:

(1) Requests for information letters as defined in Rev. Proc. 2000–4, page115, this Bulletin.

(2) Elections pertaining to automatic extensions of time under § 301.9100–1 of the Procedure and Administration regulations.

(3) Use of forms which are not to be filed with the Service. For example, no user fee is required in connection with the use of Form 5305, Individual Retirement

Trust Account, or Form 5305–A, Individual Retirement Custodial Account, in order to adopt an individual retirement account under § 408(a). This form should not be filed with the Service.

(4) In general, plan amendments whereby sponsors amend their plans by adopting, word-for-word, the model language contained in a revenue procedure which states that the amendment should not be submitted to the Service and that the Service will not issue new opinion, advisory, ruling or determination letters for plans that are amended solely to add the model language.

(5) Change in accounting period or accounting method permitted by a published revenue procedure that permits an automatic change without prior approval of the Commissioner.

.03 Exemptions from the user fee re- quirements . The following exemptions apply to the user fee requirements. These are the only exemptions that apply:

(1) Departments, agencies, or instrumentalities of the United States that certify that they are seeking a letter ruling, determination letter, opinion letter or sim

ilar letter on behalf of a program or activity funded by federal appropriations. The fact that a user fee is not charged has no bearing on whether an applicant is treated as an agency or instrumentality of the United States for purposes of any provision of the Code.

(2) Requests as to whether a worker is an employee for federal employment taxes and federal income tax withholding purposes (chapters 21, 22, 23, and 24 of subtitle C of the Code) submitted on Form SS-8, Information for Use in Determining Whether a Worker is an Employee for Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding, or its equivalent. Such a request may be submitted in connection with an application for a determination on the qualification of a plan when it is necessary to determine whether an employeremployee relationship exists. See section 6.13 of Rev. Proc. 2000–6, page 187, this Bulletin. In that case, although no user fee applies to the request submitted on Form SS-8, the applicable user fee must be paid in connection with the application for determination on the plan’s qualification.