IRS Chief Counsel Advice is written legal guidance that the IRS Office of Chief Counsel sends to IRS field employees, explaining how the agency’s in-house lawyers interpret a tax question. It is created for internal use, becomes public after redaction, and by statute cannot be cited as precedent by taxpayers or the government. Reading one tells you how the IRS is thinking about an issue; it does not tell you what a court will decide, and it will not shield you from penalties on its own.
What Chief Counsel Advice Is
Federal law defines Chief Counsel Advice (CCA) as any written advice or instruction prepared by a national office component of the Office of Chief Counsel and issued to IRS field or service center employees. To qualify, the document must convey at least one of three things: a legal interpretation of a tax-related provision, an official IRS position or policy on a tax-related provision, or a legal interpretation of state, foreign, or other federal law that relates to assessing or collecting a tax liability.1Legal Information Institute. 26 USC 6110(i)(1) – Chief Counsel Advice Defined
The “tax-related provision” language is broader than the Internal Revenue Code alone. It reaches regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, unpublished guidance, and tax treaties. A CCA can address anything from how a specific code section applies to a cryptocurrency transaction to how a treaty provision interacts with domestic withholding rules.
How It Compares to Other IRS Guidance
Confusion about a CCA usually starts with mistaking it for a different kind of IRS document. The three that come up most often work differently.
A Technical Advice Memorandum is also prepared by the National Office, but it follows a more formal process that gives the taxpayer specific rights to participate. A TAM is requested by a field office during an examination or appeal and addresses one taxpayer’s facts. CCAs can be either taxpayer-specific or general, and the taxpayer is not always part of the process.2Internal Revenue Service. About IRS Written Determinations
A Private Letter Ruling is guidance a taxpayer requests in advance of a transaction to lock in the IRS’s treatment of it. A PLR is binding on the IRS as to the taxpayer who requested it, which no CCA ever is.
A Revenue Ruling is published guidance that applies to all taxpayers and carries real legal weight. The IRS has no procedure to convert a CCA into a Revenue Ruling. If an issue covered in a CCA deserves broader application, the agency drafts a separate Revenue Ruling from scratch.3IRS. Chief Counsel Advice Questions and Answers
How a CCA Gets Written
Taxpayers do not request CCAs. The process starts inside the IRS when a field office or Field Counsel attorney runs into a question that needs input from the National Office. Before any formal request goes forward, the field office consults Field Counsel, and the request requires written approval from a director or delegate.4Internal Revenue Service. Technical Advice From the Office of Chief Counsel
Your role, if any, depends on the type of advice being sought. When Field Counsel and the National Office decide how to handle a request, one factor is whether it makes sense to involve the taxpayer. For taxpayer-specific requests, the IRS must include your name, address, and taxpayer identification number in the submission. Drafts of the legal analysis are generally not shared with you, and the substantive back-and-forth stays between the requesting office and the issuing office.5Internal Revenue Service. 33.1.2 Chief Counsels Legal Advice Program
How to Read a Published CCA
Every CCA follows the same internal structure. It opens with a Statement of Issue identifying the specific legal or procedural question. A Facts section lays out the transaction or circumstances that prompted the request. The Legal Analysis is the core of the document, walking through the relevant code sections, Treasury Regulations, and case law that support the conclusion. A Conclusion section gives the field office a direct answer.
That structure is useful for a reason: check the facts section first, and only invest time in the analysis if those facts actually resemble your situation. A CCA is only as relevant as its factual match.
Redacted CCAs live in the IRS electronic reading room at irs.gov/written-determinations. The page hosts Private Letter Rulings and Technical Advice Memoranda too, so filter for CCAs if that is what you want.6Internal Revenue Service. Written Determinations
When CCAs Become Public
Section 6110 of the Internal Revenue Code requires the IRS to make all “written determinations,” a category that explicitly includes Chief Counsel Advice, open to public inspection.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6110 – Public Inspection of Written Determinations
The timing depends on whether the CCA is taxpayer-specific. For advice that does not reference a specific taxpayer, the IRS must complete redactions and post the document within 60 days of issuance. For taxpayer-specific advice, the IRS has 60 days to mail notice to the affected taxpayer, and the document then becomes available no earlier than 75 days and no later than 90 days after that notice is mailed.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6110 – Public Inspection of Written Determinations
Before posting, the IRS removes names, addresses, and other identifying details of the taxpayer and any other person mentioned. Trade secrets and confidential financial data are stripped out as well. The published version preserves the legal reasoning without revealing who was involved.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6110 – Public Inspection of Written Determinations
Why You Cannot Cite a CCA as Precedent
Section 6110(k)(3) states plainly that a written determination may not be used or cited as precedent.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6110 – Public Inspection of Written Determinations The bar runs both ways. If your case reaches Tax Court, the judge applies the statute and binding case law, not an internal CCA that happened to address a similar question. The government cannot cite one against you either.
The IRS does not treat old CCAs as binding on its own future analysis. The agency has no system to revisit, modify, or revoke previously issued CCAs. When the Office of Chief Counsel changes its mind, it simply issues a new CCA, and both documents stay publicly available.3IRS. Chief Counsel Advice Questions and Answers That means two published CCAs can reach opposite conclusions on the same legal question with neither one formally overruling the other.
CCAs and the Accuracy Penalty
The lack of precedential status has a direct financial consequence. A CCA does not count as “substantial authority” for purposes of avoiding the 20% accuracy-related penalty under Section 6662.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6662 – Imposition of Accuracy-Related Penalty That penalty applies when your understatement of income tax exceeds the greater of 10% of the tax you should have reported or $5,000, and one of the defenses against it is showing that your position had substantial authority.
The Treasury Regulations list which sources count: the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, tax treaties, court cases, congressional committee reports, and Private Letter Rulings and Technical Advice Memoranda issued after October 31, 1976, among others. Chief Counsel Advice is not on that list.10eCFR. 26 CFR 1.6662-4 – Substantial Understatement of Income Tax If you take a position based solely on a favorable CCA and the IRS later challenges it, that CCA will not defeat the accuracy penalty.
Reliance on IRS written advice can sometimes support a separate “reasonable cause” defense for penalty abatement. If you can show you exercised ordinary business care and prudence in relying on the advice, the IRS may waive the penalty even when the strict substantial-authority test is not met.11Internal Revenue Service. 20.1.1 Introduction and Penalty Relief This is a facts-and-circumstances determination, not an automatic safe harbor. Relying on a CCA alone, without additional supporting authority, is a risky strategy for any material tax position.
Why CCAs Are Still Worth Reading
Given all those limits, CCAs still do one thing well: they show how the IRS is thinking about a tax issue right now. Revenue Rulings take years to develop and tend to address settled questions. CCAs often tackle emerging issues where no formal guidance exists yet. Tax practitioners scan newly published CCAs for early signals on the agency’s direction in areas like digital asset reporting, partnership allocations, or international structures.
A CCA also indicates how agents are likely to behave in an audit. If a CCA concludes that a particular deduction is invalid, field agents will generally follow that conclusion even though it carries no precedential weight. Knowing that in advance lets you build a stronger record for your position, or rethink the position, before it draws attention.