Presented below is our summary of significant Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidance and relevant tax matters for the week of December 2 – 6, 2019.

December 2, 2019: The IRS issued final regulations providing guidance relating to the determination of the foreign tax credit as well as guidance relating to changes made by the 2017 US tax law. The regulations finalize the proposed regulations that were published on December 7, 2018. The regulations also finalize proposed regulations on overall foreign losses that were published on June 25, 2012, as well as certain portions of proposed regulations published on November 7, 2007, relating to a US taxpayer’s obligation to notify the IRS of a foreign tax redetermination. The final regulations will be effective upon their date of publication in the federal register.

December 2, 2019: The IRS issued proposed regulations that also provide guidance relating to the determination of the foreign tax credit. The proposed regulations relate to the allocation and apportionment of deductions and creditable foreign taxes, to foreign tax redeterminations, to the availability of foreign tax credits under the Transition Tax and to the application of the foreign tax credit limitation to consolidated groups. The IRS has requested that written or electronic comments as well as requests for a public hearing be received by February 5, 2019.

December 2, 2019: The IRS issued final regulations implementing the base erosion and anti-abuse tax (the BEAT tax). The regulations finalize the proposed regulations that were published on December 21, 2018, and provide detailed guidance regarding which taxpayers will be subject to section 59A, the determination of what is a base erosion payment, the method for calculating the base erosion minimum tax amount, and the required BEAT tax resulting from that calculation. The final regulations are effective as of December 6, 2019.

December 2, 2019: The IRS issued proposed regulations that also provide guidance regarding the BEAT tax imposed on certain large corporate taxpayers with respect to certain payments made to foreign related parties. The proposed regulations would affect corporations that have substantial gross receipts that also make payments to foreign related parties. The IRS has requested that written or electronic comments as well as requests for a public hearing be received by February 4, 2020.

December 2, 2019: The IRS issued a revenue procedure that replaced Rev. Proc. 2019-09 and that identifies when a taxpayer’s disclosure on his income tax return with respect to an item or position is adequate both to reduce the understatement of income tax under section 6662(d) (relating to the substantial understatement aspect of the accuracy-related penalty) as well as to avoid the tax return preparer penalty under section 6694(a) (relating to understatements due to unreasonable positions). The IRS explained that this revenue procedure does not apply to other penalty provisions, and that it will apply to any income tax return filed on 2019 tax forms for a taxable year beginning in 2019, and to any income tax return filed in 2020 on 2019 tax forms for short taxable years beginning in 2020.

December 3, 2019: The IRS released the advance original issue discount (OID) tables for January through October of 2019. The IRS noted that the tables will be reposted in January 2020 to include information received in November and December of 2019.

December 6, 2019: The IRS issued a revenue ruling stating that overpayment and underpayment interest rates for the calendar quarter beginning January 1, 2020, will not change from the prior quarter. The rates will be 5% for overpayments (but 4% for corporations’ overpayments), 2.5% for the portion of a corporate overpayment exceeding $10,000, 5% for underpayments and 7% for large corporate underpayments. The revenue ruling will appear in the Internal Revenue Bulletin 2019-52, dated December 23, 2019.

December 6, 2019: The IRS released its weekly list of written determinations (e.g., Private Letter Rulings, Technical Advice Memorandums and Chief Counsel Advice).

Special thanks to Jenni Saperstein in our Chicago office for this week’s roundup.