Following up on our prior posts here and here, the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have proposed to remove 298 regulations and amend 79 regulations. The Treasury’s and the IRS’s action is in response to Executive Order 13789 (April 21, 2017), which called on the Treasury and the IRS to identify and reduce tax regulatory burdens that impose undue financial burdens on US taxpayers or otherwise add undue complexity to federal tax laws.

The 298 regulations are proposed to be removed because they have no current or future applicability and, therefore, no longer provide useful guidance. However, the proposed removal is not intended to alter any non-regulatory guidance that cites or relies on these regulations. The regulations proposed to be removed fall into one of three categories:

• Regulations interpreting provisions of the Internal Revenue Code (Code) that have been repealed;
• Regulations interpreting Code provision that, while not repealed, have been significantly revised, and the existing regulations do not account for these statutory changes (note that to fall within this category, the statutory changes must have rendered the entire regulation inapplicable); and
• Regulations that, by the terms of the relevant Code provisions or the regulations themselves, are no longer applicable (g., expired temporary regulations, certain transition rules)

The 79 regulations proposed to be amended are regulations that make reference to the 298 regulations proposed to be removed.

Before the proposed regulations removing and withdrawing regulations are adopted as final regulations, the Treasury and the IRS will give consideration to any written comments provided by the public. Comments must be received by May 14, 2018. A public hearing may be scheduled if requested in writing by any person that timely submits written comments.

Practice Point: Taxpayers and practitioners may want to review the list of regulations proposed to be removed to determine whether the regulations continue to serve a useful purpose and should be retained.