IRS IDENTIFIES OBSOLETE REVENUE PROCEDURE.

Rev. Proc. 98-43

[1] The Internal Revenue Service is continuing its program of reviewing and identifying those revenue procedures that, although not specifically revoked or superseded, are no longer considered determinative. The revenue procedure listed below relates to the Disclosure Authorization Lists submitted by business entities to the district office(s) with which telephone contact is expected and maintained only by those district offices. These lists provide the names and social security numbers of employees who are authorized to receive confidential tax information of the business entities. The revenue procedure is made obsolete by a change in the Service's telephone environment. Presently, if a Disclosure Authorization List is in effect, an authorized employee who contacts the Service by telephone to resolve a business tax matter may be talking to a customer service representative from a district or service center that does not have access to the Disclosure Authorization List. In this situation, the customer service representative would not be able to determine if the employee on the telephone has authorization to receive confidential tax information of the business.

[2] In the present environment, the Service advises a business entity to use Form 8821, Tax Information Authorization, to designate its employees to receive its tax information. The designated employees' names are recorded on the Centralized Authorization File so that the employees' authorizations would be available in any district or service center. See Statement of Procedural Rules, 1991-1 C.B. 717 for more information.

[3] Accordingly, the revenue procedure listed below is obsolete.

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