Taxpayers Beware: IRS Announces You Can’t Rely On What IRS Says In Its Website FAQs Because They Are Not “Legal Authority.”

The IRS is distancing itself from the advice it offers to taxpayers on its OWN website.  The IRS announced on May 18th in Memorandum SBSE-04-0517-0030, that “FAQs that appear on IRS.gov but that have not been published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin (IRB) are not legal authority and should not be used to sustain a position.”  Essentially the IRS has told its examiners that if a taxpayer relies on an FAQ on the IRS’s website, the examiner need not follow that authority and can find against the taxpayer unless the advice in the FAQ have been published in something that is “legal authority.” Many taxpayers might find it surprising that they can’t rely on what the IRS posts on its own website.  We certainly did.  Accordingly, before any taxpayer relies on the IRS website, the taxpayer should be sure there is other “legal authority.”