AICPA recommends changes to mutual fund regs.

• Author: Sherr, Eileen

The AICPATax Division's International Taxation Technical Resource Panel recently submitted a comment letter to the IRS, recommending that it amend Sec. 853 regulations to conform to Code changes made more than 20 years ago. A "clean-up" amendment would simplify reporting requirements for mutual fund shareholders by eliminating unnecessary information, thus enhancing shareholder compliance.

A significant number of mutual funds invest assets abroad and can pass through a foreign tax credit to their shareholders. The typical international mutual fund has investments in 15 to 35 different countries, but pays only an insignificant amount of foreign taxes per share. The AICPA proposal would reduce fund administrators' time and expense (often passed on to shareholders) of providing superfluous tax information.

The AICPA comments included proposed amendments to the Sec. 853 regulations and recommended that Form 1116, Foreign Tax Credit (Individual, Estate, or Trust), indicate that distributions from regulated investment companies are exempt from per-country...