IRS Form 56 Instructions: Establishing and Ending Fiduciary Authority

IRS Form 56, Notice Concerning Fiduciary Relationship, is the paper notice you send the IRS when you take legal responsibility for another person’s or entity’s tax matters, and the same form is used again to tell the IRS when that responsibility ends. These instructions walk through who files it, what to attach, how to complete each part, and where to send it. As of the December 2024 revision, Form 56 cannot be filed electronically, so plan on mailing a paper copy.¹

Who Files Form 56 and When

You file Form 56 if you have legal authority to act for another taxpayer in tax matters. The IRS treats a fiduciary as though they are the taxpayer, which means you inherit the duty to file returns, pay what’s owed, and respond to notices.² The common roles:

Executor or administrator of a decedent’s estate.
Trustee of a trust.
Guardian or conservator for a minor or an incapacitated person.
Receiver or assignee in receivership or an assignment for the benefit of creditors.

Each fiduciary files a separate Form 56. Co-executors each file their own. For a decedent, the IRS instructions direct you to file two forms: one for the decedent (using their SSN, tied to the final Form 1040) and a separate one for the estate itself (using the estate’s EIN, tied to Form 1041). Missing the second filing is a common oversight.¹

File as soon as the fiduciary relationship is created. For most fiduciaries there’s no statutory deadline, but every day the form isn’t on file is a day the IRS can send legally effective notices to the taxpayer’s last known address and get no response. Receivers and assignees are the exception: they must file within 10 days of appointment (covered below).

What to Gather Before You Start

The Right Taxpayer Identification Number

For an individual (for example, if you’re guardian for an incapacitated person), use that person’s Social Security Number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number.³ For an estate or trust, you need an Employer Identification Number, and you’ll usually need it before filing Form 56 because it goes in the identifying number field.

Executors can apply for an estate’s EIN on Form SS-4. The online application through the IRS website is free and issues the number immediately.⁴ If a decedent’s estate also has to file Form 706 (the estate tax return), enter both the decedent’s SSN and the estate’s EIN in the identifying number area.¹

Proof of Your Authority

The IRS will not recognize your fiduciary status from Form 56 alone. You must attach the legal document that proves your appointment.⁵ What to send depends on your role:

Executors and administrators: current letters testamentary or a court certificate of appointment.¹
Trustees: the pages of the trust instrument that show your appointment.
Guardians and conservators: a court certificate or order of appointment.

“Current” is doing real work in that first line. Some courts issue letters testamentary with an expiration date. If yours have lapsed, get a fresh set before mailing; the IRS will reject the form if the attached proof appears expired.

Completing Part I: Establishing the Relationship

Identifying the Parties

At the top, enter the name, address, and identifying number of the person or entity you’re acting for. Below that, enter your own name, address, and telephone number as the fiduciary.

Section A: Type of Authority

Check the box that fits how you became fiduciary:

Line 1a — testate estate: you’re the executor of someone who died with a valid will.
Line 1b — intestate estate with court appointment: you’re the court-appointed administrator of someone who died without a will.
Line 1c — guardian or conservator: a court appointed you to manage another person’s financial interests.
Line 1d — intestate estate without court appointment: you’re acting for an intestate estate but haven’t been formally appointed.

If a court granted your authority, fill in the court’s name and address and the date of appointment or the decedent’s date of death.²

Section E: Tax Types and Form Numbers

This is the section people rush and then regret. Check every type of tax you’ll be responsible for: income, gift, estate, generation-skipping transfer, employment, and excise. List the specific form numbers too (Form 1040, 1041, 706, and so on). If you check only “income” but the taxpayer also owes employment taxes from a business they ran, the IRS may not route those notices to you. When in doubt, check every box that could apply.

Where to Mail Form 56

Send Form 56 to the IRS service center where the taxpayer files their returns. If you’ll handle more than one type of return and one of them is Form 1040, file with the center that handles the individual return.⁶

For estate and trust fiduciaries whose main filing is Form 1041, the address depends on the taxpayer’s state of residence:⁷

Eastern and midwestern states (Connecticut through Wisconsin, including the District of Columbia): Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Kansas City, MO 64999-0048.
Western and southern states (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona through Wyoming): Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Ogden, UT 84201-0048.

For individual returns, look up the state-specific address on the IRS “Where to File” page.⁸ A wrong address won’t invalidate the form, but it will delay processing, and until the form is processed you have no recognized authority.

Special Rules for Receivers, Assignees, and Bankruptcy

Receivers and assignees for the benefit of creditors have 10 days from appointment to file Form 56, and the form goes to the Advisory Group Manager at the IRS area office with jurisdiction over the taxpayer, not to a service center. They may also file a separate copy with the normal service center to trigger the notice protections under section 6903.¹

Bankruptcy trustees, debtors-in-possession, and similar fiduciaries in bankruptcy proceedings do not file Form 56. They follow the notification requirements under Title 11 of the U.S. Code instead.¹

Completing Part II: Ending the Relationship

Filing the initial form is only half the job. When the relationship ends, file another Form 56 with Part II completed. Until you do, the IRS keeps sending you notices and treating you as the responsible party.²

Section A of Part II asks for the date the relationship ended and the reason. Common reasons: the estate is fully administered and closed, a trust has terminated under its own terms, or a court has discharged a guardian. Enter the specific date and a short description. No attachments are mandatory, but keep a copy of the court’s final decree or closing order in your records in case the IRS later questions the timeline.

File promptly. Former fiduciaries sometimes assume the job is finished when the estate closes, but the IRS doesn’t know that until you tell them, and in the meantime any notice they send is still legally yours to answer.

When one fiduciary replaces another, both filings happen: the outgoing fiduciary files Form 56 with Part II; the successor files a new Form 56 with Part I and their own proof of authority (a new court order, an amended trust document). Timing them close together avoids a gap in recognized contact.¹

What Happens If You Skip Form 56

Until the IRS receives a valid Form 56, notices sent to the taxpayer’s last known address are legally sufficient even if the taxpayer is deceased or incapacitated and nobody is reading the mail. Deadlines to answer audits, pay assessments, or file appeals can pass without anyone knowing, and penalties and interest accumulate in the meantime.

A processed Form 56 shifts the IRS’s notice obligation to you: the agency must send notices to the fiduciary’s address for them to be legally effective.⁵ It also gives you the recognized authority you need to pull transcripts, access account information, and negotiate installment agreements or offers in compromise. Without it, you carry the legal duty to handle the taxes but lack the tools to do it.

Form 56 Is Not a Power of Attorney

Form 56 and Form 2848 (Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative) are often confused and do different things. A fiduciary filing Form 56 steps into the taxpayer’s shoes and assumes full legal responsibility. A representative under Form 2848 is an agent who can speak to the IRS and access tax information but does not become personally responsible for the taxpayer’s debts or filing obligations.⁹ Form 2848 is voluntary and easily revoked; a Form 56 fiduciary relationship is typically created by court order or legal document and ends only through formal legal steps.

The two can work together. An executor who wants to hire a CPA or attorney to represent the estate files Form 56 as fiduciary, then signs Form 2848 on the estate’s behalf naming the professional as its representative.⁹

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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 56
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 56
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Internal Revenue Service. Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN)
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Internal Revenue Service. Information for Executors
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 56, Notice Concerning Fiduciary Relationship
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Internal Revenue Service. Where to File – Forms Beginning With the Number 5
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Internal Revenue Service. Where to File Your Taxes for Form 1041
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Internal Revenue Service. Where to File Paper Tax Returns With or Without a Payment
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 2848