SECTION 2. BACKGROUND

.01 For owners of passenger automobiles, § 280F(a) imposes dollar limitations on the depreciation deduction for the year that the passenger automobile is placed in service by the taxpayer and each succeeding year. Section 280F(d)(7) requires the amounts allowable as depreciation deductions to be increased by a price inflation adjustment amount for passenger automobiles placed in service after 1988. The method of calculating this price inflation

For this purpose, the rules in § 1.1001–3(e) determine whether a modification is “significant.” See § 1.860G–2(b)(2). Thus, even if an entity initially qualifies as a REMIC, one or more significant modifications of loans held by the entity may terminate the qualification if the modifications cause less than substantially all of the entity’s assets to be qualified mortgages.

.10 Certain loan modifications, however, are not significant for purposes of § 1.860G–2(b)(1), even if the modifications are significant under the rules in § 1.1001–3. In particular, under § 1.860G–2(b)(3)(i), if a change in the terms of an obligation is “occasioned by default or a reasonably foreseeable default,” the change is not a significant modification for purposes of § 1.860G–2(b)(1), regardless of the modification’s status under § 1.1001–3.

.11 Section 860F(a)(1) imposes a tax on REMICs equal to 100 percent of the net income derived from “prohibited transactions.” The disposition of a qualified mortgage is a prohibited transaction unless the “disposition [is] pursuant to—(i) the substitution of a qualified replacement mortgage for a qualified mortgage . . ., (ii) a disposition incident to the foreclosure, default, or imminent default of the mortgage, (iii) the bankruptcy or insolvency of the REMIC, or (iv) a qualified liquidation.” Section 860F(a)(2)(A).

.12 Under section 860C(b)(1), “The taxable income of a REMIC shall be determined under an accrual method of accounting . . . except that— . . . (C) there shall not be taken into account any item of income, gain, loss, or deduction allocable to a prohibited transaction, . . .”