Charitable deductions. This ruling concludes that a trust is not prohibited from taking a charitable deduction under section 642(c) of the Code for the trust's distributive share of a charitable contribution made by a partnership from the partnership's gross income even though the trust's governing instrument does not authorize the trustee to make charitable contributions.

Final, temporary, and proposed regulations under section 6011 of the Code are designed to eliminate regulatory impediments to the electronic filing of certain income tax returns and other forms.

Final regulations under section 6045 of the Code provide that brokers must file information returns and furnish information statements to individuals who receive substitute payments in lieu of dividends on or after January 1, 2003.

The Service announces a new reporting code to be used beginning with the 2004 Form W-2. Employer contributions to an employee's Health Savings Account (HSA) must be reported on Form W-2 in box 12 using Code W.

Capitalization, business expenses, tangible property. The Service and Treasury Department intend to propose regulations that clarify the application of sections 162 and 263 of the Code to expenditures paid or incurred to repair, improve, or rehabilitate tangible property. This notice requests comments on issues relating to such expenditures by March 1, 2004.

Charitable contributions; intellectual property. This notice advises taxpayers that, in appropriate cases, the Service intends to disallow improper charitable contribution deductions claimed by taxpayers in connection with the transfer of patents or other intellectual property to charitable organizations. In particular, the IRS has become aware of purported charitable contributions of intellectual property in which one or more of the following issues (which may affect the availability or amount of a deduction) are present: 1) transfer of a nondeductible partial interest in intellectual property; 2) the taxpayer's expectation or receipt of a benefit in exchange for the transfer; 3) inadequate substantiation of the contribution; and 4) overvaluation of the intellectual property transferred.

This procedure provides an automatic consent procedure allowing a taxpayer to make a change in method of accounting for certain depreciable or amortizable property after its disposition, waives the two-year rule in Rev. Rul. 90-38 with respect to certain changes in depreciation or amortization, and modifies other revenue procedures to conform with regulations section 1.446-1T(e)(2)(ii)(d). Rev. Procs. 2000-38, 2000-50, and 2002-9 modified.