Accounting and Auditing Research and Databases: Practitioner's Desk Reference

Treasury Regulations

The Treasury Department issues Treasury Regulations drafted by the IRS, which is the largest division of the Treasury Department. Search for relevant Treasury Regulations after researching relevant Code sections. Regulations provide general guidance that interpret and clarify the statutory law. Regulations are first published as Treasury Decisions (TDs).

Because regulations sometimes take several years to formulate, occasionally the Treasury Department will issue an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. New regulations now include a preamble describing the content and purpose of the regulation. Note that while some Code sections have many Treasury Regulations, other sections have none.

The citation to a Treasury Regulation indicates the Code section at issue. It's the number in the citation after the period and before the hyphen. The initial number before the period is the part number that indicates the type of tax at issue. For example, a “1” in front of the regulation means that it is an income tax regulation. Thus, Treas. Reg. § 1.61-1 is an income tax regulation interpreting Code section 61, as shown in Exhibit 5-6. Other popular part numbers are 20 for estate taxes, 25 for gift taxes, and part 301 for procedural rules.

Exhibit 5-6 Example Treasury Regulation

Understand the three major types of Treasury Regulations: final, temporary, and proposed. Most ...