New fee for estate closing letters from IRS

Don’t forget to enclose payment with requests to the Internal Revenue Service for closing letters for clients' estates in a month.

Starting Oct. 28, a $67 user fee applies to any estate that requests a closing letter for its federal estate tax return. Letter requests must be made using Pay.gov.

Federal agencies are legally required to charge a user fee to cover the cost of providing certain services to the public that confer a special benefit to the user. Agencies must review these fees every two years. The IRS has determined that issuing closing letters is a service that confers a special benefit warranting a user fee.

The service said that it will provide more details before the user fee takes effect.

Estates can obtain from the IRS a free account transcript that shows certain information from the estate tax return, comparable to that found in a closing letter. Account transcripts can be used to confirm that an estate tax return examination has been completed and the IRS file closed.