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APPENDIX AThe IRS (from its National Office) prepares and disseminates guidelinesinterpreting tax statutes and tax regulations. These guidelines have the force oflaw, unless they are overbroad in relation to the statute and/or Treasury regulationinvolved, or are unconstitutional. IRS determinations on a point of law aretermed revenue rulings (Rev. Rul.); those that are rules of procedure are termedrevenue procedures (Rev. Proc.).Revenue rulings (which may be based on one or more court opinions) andrevenue procedures are sequentially numbered every calendar year, with thatnumber preceded by a four-digit number reflecting the year of issue. For example,the 50th revenue ruling issued in 2005 is cited as “Rev. Rul. 2005-50.” Likewise,the 25th revenue procedure issued in 2005 is cited as “Rev. Proc. 2005-25.”These IRS determinations are published each week in the Internal RevenueBulletin (I.R.B.). In the foregoing examples, when the determinations are firstpublished, the revenue ruling is cited as “Rev. Rul. 2005-50, 2005-_____ I.R.B._____,” with the number after the hyphen being the number of the particularissue of the weekly Bulletin and the last number being the page number withinthat issue on which the item begins. Likewise, the revenue procedure is cited as“Rev. Proc. 2005-25, 2005-_____ I.R.B. _____.” Every six months, the Internal RevenueBulletins are republished as hardbound books; these publications aretermed the Cumulative Bulletin (C.B.). The Cumulative Bulletin designation thenbecomes the permanent citation for the determination. Thus, the permanent citationsfor these two IRS determinations are “Rev. Rul. 2005-50, 2005-1 C. B. _____”(see, e.g., Chapter 3, note 8) and “Rev. Proc. 2005-25, 2005-1 C. B. _____” (see,e.g., Chapter 2, note 16), with the first number being the year of issue, the secondnumber (after the hyphen) indicating whether the determination is published inthe first six months of the year (“1,” as is the case in the example, or the secondsix months of the year (“2”)), and the last number being the page number withinthat semiannual bound volume at which the determination begins.The IRS considers itself bound by its revenue rulings and revenue procedures.These determinations are the “law,” particularly in the sense that the IRSregards them as precedential, although they are not binding on the courts.Indeed, the courts generally treat an IRS revenue ruling as merely the position ofthe IRS with respect to a specific factual situation.By contrast to these forms of “public” law, the IRS (again, from its NationalOffice) also issues private or nonprecedential determinations. These documentsprincipally are private letter rulings (Priv. Ltr. Rul.), technical advice memoranda(Tech. Adv. Mem.), and chief counsel advice memoranda (Ch. Couns. Adv. Mem.).These determinations may not be cited as legal authority (IRC § 6110(j)(3)).Nonetheless, these pronouncements can be valuable in understanding IRS thinkingon a point of law and, in practice (the statutory prohibition notwithstanding),these documents are cited in court opinions, articles, and books as IRSpositions on issues.The IRS issues private letter rulings in response to written questions (termedruling requests) submitted to the IRS by individuals and organizations. An IRSdistrict office may refer a case to the IRS National Office for advice (termed technicaladvice); the resulting advice is provided to the IRS district office in the formof a technical advice memorandum. In the course of preparing a revenue ruling, 643