IRS releases new Form 3115 for tax accounting method changes

The IRS issued today an advance copy of Announcement 2010-32 (which will be published in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2010-19 on May 10, 2010) discussing the new December 2009 revision of Form 3115, which is required for both automatic tax accounting method changes as well as non-automatic tax accounting method change requests.

In short, the IRS will generally accept either the new or the old (December 2003) version through May 30, 2010, after which it will only accept the December 2009 version.  Nevertheless, taxpayers are urged to use the new version before the deadline.

All links are to Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files.

• Copy of Announcement 2010-32 is available at http://bit.ly/btMBtS

• Copy of December 2009 version of Form 3115 is available at http://bit.ly/bTLbbz

• Copy of December 2009 version of Form 3115 instructions is available at http://bit.ly/dvBdnT

I hope to get a chance soon to review the specific changes between the old and new versions and will update when I'm done.