IRS obsoletes 83 pieces of old guidance

The Internal Revenue Service has declared 83 pieces of old guidance in the Internal Revenue Bulletin to be obsolete.

In Notice 2025-36, the IRS obsoleted 83 pieces of guidance dating back decades in keeping with an executive order from President Trump. Earlier this year, the IRS obsoleted nine IRB guidance documents in Notice 2025-22. The latest notice continues that process of eliminating what are now deemed to be extraneous and unnecessary guidance documents.

Trump issued an executive order in January that called for identifying 10 existing regulations to be repealed for each regulation publicly proposed for notice and comment or otherwise promulgated. Then in February, Trump issued another executive order that similarly called for eliminating "overbearing and burdensome" regulations and other guidance documents, and "ending Federal overreach." That order directed agency leaders to coordinate with the Department of Government Efficiency team leads and the Office of Management and Budget to identify regulations and other guidance documents to be eliminated.

As part of carrying out the orders, the Treasury Department and the IRS have undertaken a review of regulations and I.R.B. guidance issued under the Internal Revenue Code  to identify guidance to be eliminated. That review is ongoing, but in the latest notice, 83 I.R.B. guidance documents are being obsoleted. These guidance documents no longer provide useful information, and clarifying their status as obsolete will streamline administration of the tax laws; reduce the volume of guidance that taxpayers and their advisors need to review for compliance with the tax laws; and increase clarity of the tax law. The Treasury Department and the IRS anticipate they will be revoking or obsoleting additional similar guidance documents in the near future.

Among the guidance documents that were obsoleted last week are rules dating back to the 1970s involving collapsible and noncollapsible corporations, guidance from the 1960s on whether a corporation engaged in "construction," a revenue ruling from 1956 on the alternative tax that was repealed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and a revenue ruling from 1954 providing guidance on the optional valuation date to be used for certain assets received in the liquidation of corporate stock held among the assets of an estate under the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. Several more recent pieces of guidance were also obsoleted because they applied to previous tax years.

Separately, the IRS also withdrew two notices of proposed rulemaking last week containing proposed regulations on the treatment of built-in items of income, gain, deduction and loss taken into account by a loss corporation after an ownership change.  The proposed regulations would have affected corporations that experience an ownership change under section 382(h) of the Internal Revenue Code.