SECTION 9. PAYMENT OF FEE

.01 Method of payment. Except as provided in section 9.04, each request to the Service for a letter ruling, determination letter, opinion letter, etc., must be accompanied by a check or money order, pay

able to the United States Treasury, in the appropriate amount. Taxpayers should not send cash.

Your check may be converted to an electronic fund transfer. “Electronic fund transfer” is the term used to refer to the process in which we electronically instruct your financial institution to transfer funds from your account to our account, rather than processing your check. By sending your completed, signed check to us, you authorize us to copy your check and to use the account information from your check to make an electronic fund transfer from your account for the same amount as the check. If the electronic fund transfer cannot be processed for technical reasons, you authorize us to process the copy of your check.

The electronic fund transfer from your account will usually occur within 24 hours, which is faster than a check is normally processed. Therefore, make sure there are sufficient funds available in your checking account when you send us your check. You will not receive your check back from your financial institution.

.02 Transmittal forms. Form 8717, User Fee for Employee Plan Determina- tion Letter Request (or a payment confirmation from pay.gov as described in section 9.04), Form 8717–A, User Fee for Employee Plan Opinion or Advisory Let- ter Request and Form 8718, User Fee for Exempt Organization Determination Let- ter Request, are intended to be used as attachments to certain determination letter, opinion letter and advisory letter applications. Space is reserved for the attachment of the applicable user fee check or money order. No similar form has been designed to be used in connection with requests for letter rulings or administrative scrutiny determinations.

.03 Effect of nonpayment or payment of incorrect amount.

It will be the general practice of the Service that:

(1) The respective offices within the Service that are responsible for issuing letter rulings, determination letters, etc., will exercise discretion in deciding whether to immediately return submissions that are not accompanied by a properly completed check or money order or that are accompanied by a check or money order for less than the correct amount. In

Sec. 9.03 January 2, 2014 250 Bulletin No. 2014–1

those instances where the submission is not immediately returned, the requester will be contacted and given a reasonable amount of time to submit the proper fee. If the proper fee is not received within a reasonable amount of time, the entire submission will then be returned. However, the respective offices of the Service, in their discretion, may defer substantive consideration of a submission until proper payment has been received.

(2) An application for a determination or opinion or advisory letter will not be returned merely because Form 8717, Form 8717–A or Form 8718 was not attached.

(3) The return of a submission to the requester may adversely affect substantive rights if the submission is not perfected and resubmitted to the Service within 30 days of the date of the cover letter returning the submission. Examples of this are: (a) where an application for a determination letter is submitted prior to the expiration of the remedial amendment period under § 401(b) and is returned because no user fee was attached, the submission will be timely if it is resubmitted by the expiration of the remedial amendment period or, if later, within 30 days after the application was returned; and (b) where an application for exemption under § 501(c)(3) is submitted before expiration of the period provided by § 1.508–1(a)(2) and is returned because no user fee was attached, the submission will be timely if it is resubmitted before expiration of the period provided by § 1.508–1(a)(2) or within 30 days, whichever is later.

(4) If a check or money order is for more than the correct amount, the submission will be accepted and the amount of the excess payment will be returned to the requester.

.04 Payment of user fees for Employee Plan Determination applications.

User fees for Employee Plan Determination applications (Form 5300 series only) may be paid by credit or direct debit from a checking or savings account through www.pay.gov. Payment confirmations are provided through the www.pay. gov portal and must be submitted in lieu of the paper Form 8717. Additional information can be found at Frequently Asked Questions at www.pay.gov .