The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) announces recent disciplinary sanctions involving attorneys, certified public accountants, enrolled agents, enrolled actuaries, enrolled retirement plan agents, and appraisers. These individuals are subject to the regulations governing practice before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which are set out in Title 31, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 10, and which are published in pamphlet form as Treasury Department Circular No. 230. The regulations prescribe the duties and restrictions relating to such practice and prescribe the disciplinary sanctions for violating the regulations.

Guidance for determining whether a State or local government entity or an organization described in § 501(c)(3) of the Code that benefits from tax-exempt bond financing will be considered to have private business use of its bond-financed facilities under § 141 or § 145(a)(2)(B) of the Code as a result of its participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program through an "accountable care organization." In addition, this notice amplifies Rev. Proc. 97–13, 1997–1 C.B. 632, as amended by Rev. Proc. 2001–39, 2001–2 C.B. 38, regarding certain management contracts that do not result in private business use.

This document contains final regulations that will remove regulations relating to information reporting and backup withholding for the Qualified Payment Card Agent (QPCA) Program.

This notice provides a special rule that enables qualified defined contribution plans to provide lifetime income by offering, as investment options, a series of target date funds (TDFs) that include deferred annuities among their assets, even if some of the TDFs within the series are available only to older participants. This special rule provides that, if certain conditions are satisfied, a series of TDFs in a defined contribution plan is treated as a single right or feature for purposes of the nondiscrimination requirements of § 401(a)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This permits the TDFs to satisfy those nondiscrimination requirements as they apply to rights or features even if one or more of the TDFs considered on its own would not satisfy those requirements.