The Internal Revenue Service’s Chief Counsel has released its annual Priority Guidance Plan for 2016 to 2017.

The plan describes the tax issues that the IRS plans to address in the coming year in the way of regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, notices, and other administrative guidance. The 2016–2017 Priority Guidance Plan contains 281 projects.

Some of the items on the to-do list include the reporting of gaming winnings, updates on truncated taxpayer identification numbers, updates on regulations regarding sales of seized property, regulations updating the rules applicable to employee stock ownership plans, exceptions to the additional tax on early distributions from retirement plans and IRAs, and guidance on user fees.

IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins recently told a tax conference in New York that the most recent plan was the first in many years to have well under 300 projects as opposed to well over 300 (see IRS Contends with Mounting Legal Challenges). He anticipates the number of guidance projects will remain under 300 in plans for the foreseeable future.

“Our guidance priorities are always going to be heavily influenced by enactment of new tax legislation,” said Wilkins. “The 2010 enactments of the Affordable Care Act and FATCA have been the most important drivers of guidance activity during my tenure as Chief Counsel. At this point there are far fewer published guidance projects being driven by these statutes than in prior years. International guidance work in particular has shifted significantly away from FATCA towards other projects grounded in basic income tax rules. Beyond implementing new legislation we expect to focus significant short-term effort on finishing what has already been started in a number of areas.”

For a look into the crystal ball, click here.