Purpose. This section introduces the mission and procedures for Indian Tribal Governments administration within the office of Indian Tribal Governments.

Audience. ITG employees and IRS employees interacting with federally recognized Indian tribes.

Policy Owner. Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE).

Program Owner. The Program Manager, Indian Tribal Governments, under TE/GE is responsible for overseeing federal tax administration as it applies to Indian Tribal Governments.

Contact Information. To recommend changes or make any other suggestions related to this IRM section, email the Product Content Owner shown on the Product Catalog Information page for this IRM.

ITG provides Indian tribal government customers top quality service by helping them understand and comply with applicable tax laws, and to protect the public interest by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness. The ITG office is guided by principles of respect for Indian tribal self-government and sovereignty.

ITG supports a functional and interactive government-to-government relationship with Indian tribal governments as directed by Presidential Executive Orders and was established to help Indian tribes with their federal tax matters. Indian tribal governments and tribal associations gave valuable input into the design of ITG, which focuses on offering a single point of contact for tax help.

Field groups include specialists trained in ITG protocol. Specialists are supervised by group managers.

Specialists address issues and provide guidance unique to Indian tribes and maintain proper protocol with sovereign tribal governments, including tax fraud and abusive schemes.

The IRS is governed by consultation policies that may be adopted by the Department of the Treasury. ITG continues this dialogue to ensure we constantly evolve to reflect tribal, IRS, and stakeholder needs.

The Treasury Department has a consultation process to dialogue with Indian tribes on a government-to-government basis. This allows better understanding and response to their needs on Treasury regulations, legislative comments, proposed legislation and policy statements that have Tribal implications, impacts Tribal economy or preempt Tribal law. The Treasury Department's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Management & Budget is responsible for coordinating consultation between the Indian tribes and Treasury Department bureaus and offices. Please use the e-mail below to contact the Treasury’s official point of contact for tribal consultation if you have any questions, concerns or comments.

ITG is responsible for any federal tax issues involving federally recognized Indian tribes. ITG provides services and federal tax information to assist tribes in understanding and meeting their federal tax responsibilities. Specialists address unique Indian tribal issues, including:

ITG is responsible for identifying entities subject to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) (Title 31) that are owned by Indian tribal governments. ITG also is responsible for education and outreach on BSA requirements to entities owned by Indian tribal governments. See IRM 4.86.1.6(5) for MOU Summary.

The IRS Taxpayer Advocate program is designed to alleviate taxpayer hardships arising from systemic problems or the application of the Internal Revenue Code. Additional resources for Taxpayer Advocate Service:

If, during a customer contact, the specialist can’t resolve the issue and one of the situations below applies, prepare or help the taxpayer prepare Form 911, Request for Taxpayer Advocate Service Assistance (And Application for Taxpayer Assistance Order):

Confirm the local Taxpayer Advocate's office receives the Form 911 timely and monitor the status with TAS until the issue is resolved.

Refer to the Service Level Agreement between the National Taxpayer Advocate and the Commissioner, Tax Exempt and Government Entities for procedures.

ITG specialists trained in tribal protocols are the primary IRS point of contact for all interactions with federally-recognized Indian tribes and are responsible for:

ITG employees are specially trained in the unique areas of tax law and protocols applicable to Indian tribes.

To alleviate potential problems and ensure that the IRS complies with existing legal requirements, all IRS employees must contact the Office of Indian Tribal Governments before initially contacting any Indian tribal government/enterprise account(s). Sometimes, a tribe may request that all IRS employees get the tribe’s approval before entering tribal lands when conducting IRS business..

Because ITG coordinates all aspects of tax administration impacting tribes, ITG entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with these parts of Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) for the following:

ITG interacts with other IRS offices:

On all ITG closed cases that are unagreed and considered by the IRS’s Office of Appeals, the Appeals office will provide an Appeals Case Memorandum (ACM) to the ITG Program Manager, who then sends the ACM to the group manager with supervisory authority for the particular case. The group manager may provide the ACM to the field specialist previously assigned to the case. The ACM is usually Appeals’ only feedback vehicle.

Appeals may send feedback in a separate memorandum if they determine some aspect of a closed case warrants special attention in addition to the ACM. Favorable comments by memoranda are encouraged.

Appeals may return cases for ITG to verify new information or further development using an explanatory memorandum.

Use Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS) command code INOLES to identify an Indian tribal government/enterprise(s) by these codes:

Entities wholly owned by Indian tribes are under the jurisdiction of Tax Exempt and Government Entities/Indian Tribal Governments. Tribes may be involved in businesses/enterprises that aren’t wholly owned, such as partnerships and joint ventures with other tribes or non-tribal entities. The IRS BOD with jurisdiction (TE/GE, SB/SE or Large Business & International (LB&I)) is generally determined by the level of ownership.

If the BOD classification is unclear, then these situations will be resolved at the lowest managerial levels in the IRS units involved. If the group manager(s) can’t agree, the issue is raised to the next level of management until resolved.

ITG entities are identified on IDRS by BOD code "TE" , employment code "I" and client code "I" .

If an ITG entity has issued a tax-exempt bond, the CC could be a "1" instead of an "I" .

If an ITG entity was at one time exempt under IRC 501(c), the EO section may show at the bottom of the INOLES display. This EO section is for historical purposes. If the EO status code (STS-CD) is active, this means the entity's IRC 501(c) exempt status is still in effect, subject to EO oversight and not an ITG entity. If the EO status code is inactive, this means the EO tax exempt status is no longer in effect, and it’s an ITG entity if an Indian tribal government(s) owns more than 50 percent. See Document 6209, IRS Processing Codes and Information, Section 13.10.(3), Status Codes - Master Files and AIMS, for a list of active and inactive status codes.

Verify the Employer's Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return, filing requirement (FR) on INOLES is correct. The FR for ITG entities is either "3" (compliant - not required to file) or "4" (non-compliant - required to file). Most of the time, the Form 940 FR is "3" indicating that the organization has elected not to be subject to Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) by participating in the state unemployment system.

Specialists must ensure the Indian tribal governments and related businesses/enterprises’ BOD code is accurate. If the BOD, CC, EC and FR aren’t correct, update the necessary changes using the Tribal/Entity Information Update Form. After completing the form, click on the SUBMIT button to send to CP&C for input.

The Tribal Social Security Fairness Act of 2018, Public Law 115-243, became law on September 20, 2018. This new law amends the Social Security Act by creating Section 218A to allow voluntary Social Security coverage for federally recognized Indian Tribal council members. These tribes may also request retroactive coverage for past periods when the tribe paid FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) taxes but did not request a refund of those taxes from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For more information, see www.ssa.gov/people/aian/.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has a link to the Federal Register, which publishes the current list of federally-recognized tribes, and Alaskan Native entities. In addition, the BIA maintains a Tribal Leaders Directory on its website. The Tribal Leaders Directory is published semi-annually and lists a tribe's name, address, telephone and fax number (and email or website, if provided) for each federally recognized tribe. The directory also gives information on the BIA regions and agency offices. The BIA website is www.bia.gov.

The National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) was established within the Department of the Interior to implement the provisions of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). The Commission has field representatives who maintain contact with those tribes that have gaming operations. These representatives are a useful source of information. The website address is www.nigc.gov. Find the MOU between ITG and NIGC.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The mission of the FinCEN is to safeguard the financial system from illicit use and combat money laundering and promote national security through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence and strategic use of financial authorities. FinCEN carries out its mission by receiving and maintaining financial transactions data; analyzing and disseminating that data for law enforcement purposes; and building global cooperation with counterpart organizations in other countries and with international bodies. The website address is www.fincen.gov.

USA.gov provides information and services of all federal governmental agencies. Find information about tribal governments and Native American current affairs at www.usa.gov/tribes.

The U.S. Government has a unique legal relationship with Indian tribal governments in the Constitution of the United States, treaties, statutes and court decisions. Congress may limit the authority of Indian tribes, but within those limits the tribes retain "attributes of sovereignty over both their members and their territory," U.S. vs. Mazurie, 419 U.S. 544, 557 (1975).

Tribal government powers include the authority to:

Generally, Indian tribes provide governmental services, such as transportation, education and medical care to Indian tribal members.

Although Congress can limit tribal powers of sovereignty, the states can’t. The general rule in Indian law is that unless there’s specific delegation of authority provided by Congress, state laws generally don’t apply to Indians on tribal land. So, Indian tribes are semi-sovereign entities, or distinct, independent political communities within the borders of the states in which they reside. Their sovereign powers can be limited or defined by an act of Congress or, in some cases, those powers may have been implicitly lost when tribes became subject to the overriding U.S. sovereignty. On the other hand, the laws of any state are limited in the ways they can have any direct effect on Indians residing on tribal land, or on the exercise of tribal sovereign power within tribal boundaries.

Tribal sovereignty is the foundation upon which the government-to-government relationship stands. Sovereignty is neither granted by, nor negated by federal statutes, acts or treaties. It is inherent.

Over the years, Presidential Executive Orders (see Executive Order No. 13175, 65 FR 67249, Nov. 6, 2000) have directed federal government agencies, to the extent permitted by law, to:

A government-to-government relationship is a bilateral recognition of the respective parties’ sovereignty. The IRS must interact in a way that respects the tribe's position as a sovereign entity. Follow these guidelines when working with tribal governments:

ITG is covered by the disclosure and privacy procedures stated in IRM 11.3, Disclosure of Official Information.

The disclosure laws are made up mostly of sections from:

Secure confidential information for the case from unauthorized disclosure. Generally, consider information that wouldn’t be disclosed to the taxpayer, if a request were made under provisions of the FOIA, as confidential or sensitive in nature.

Secure confidential information in To be Opened by Addressee Only envelopes. Use Form TDF 15-05.11, Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU) Cover Sheet, to alert others to the sensitive nature of the information. Also use Form TDF 15-05.11 as a cover for the case file if it contains any information requiring protection.

All ITG employees must be cautious not to damage the relationship of respect that we have for Indian self-government and sovereignty. This is further stated in the ITG mission statement, "The ITG office is guided by principles of respect for Indian tribal self-government and sovereignty." This relationship can be very complex at times given our responsibility to administer the tax laws in a fair manner to all. It’s very important that the employee knows who the tribe has designated to discuss confidential information with the IRS.

IRM 11.1.3, Communications, Contact with the Public and the Media, gives procedures for working and responding to media requests. IRM 7.1.7, TE/GE Administrative Procedures and Programs - Processing Information Requests, provides supplemental information and guidance on how TE/GE employees respond to media requests.

If you receive a media inquiry request that wasn’t submitted as a FOIA request, don’t respond, but, instead, immediately contact ITG Technical.

IRM 11.3.13, Disclosure of Official Information, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), gives procedures for working and responding to FOIA requests. IRM 7.1.7, TE/GE Administrative Procedures and Programs - Processing Information Requests, provides supplemental information and guidance on how TE/GE employees respond to FOIA requests.

FOIA requests come to TE/GE from Privacy, Governmental Liaison & Disclosure (PGLD).

Use the correspondence guidelines in IRM 21.3.3, Taxpayer Contacts, Incoming and Outgoing Correspondence/Letters, that all operating divisions and functions who initiate or resolve taxpayer correspondence use. Correspondence with tribal governments helps build trust and respect and reinforces government-to-government relationships.

Reply to tribal governments timely and accurately. A timely response is within 30 days or less of the IRS-received date. If you can’t give a final response within 30 days, send an interim response by this time.

Include on all correspondence the employee’s: name, contact telephone number, employee identification number, and signature.

Get manually composed letters approved by management.

Follow IRM 25.13, Taxpayer Contacts, when creating, revising and approving taxpayer correspondence intended for 10 or more recipients (over the lifetime of the document).

WebETS is the acronym for the Web-based Employee Technical Time System. WebETS is a web-based application to:

ITG uses WebETS. See IRM 4.5.5, TE/GE Reports.

Accurate time and activity reporting is essential to effective ITG planning, budgeting, and evaluation.

For employees who work mixed inventories: charge time to the appropriate activity codes (subject to change each fiscal year). See Document 11308, Government Entities Information Systems Codes, for a current list of codes.

Delegations of Authority are the official documents IRS uses to delegate authority. They’re published as Delegation Orders. See IRM 1.2.2, Servicewide Policies and Authorities, Servicewide Delegations of Authority.

TE/GE employees can find TE/GE Delegation Orders on TE/GE Connect under the ITG tab.