S.J. Res. 72 is a short Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution that declares the Internal Revenue Service rule titled “Estate Tax Closing Letter User Fee Update” (90 Fed.
Reg. 21410 (May 20, 2025)) to have no force or effect. The text consists solely of a statutory disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, U.S. Code, targeting that specific Federal Register entry.
The practical consequence, if the resolution is enacted, is twofold: the named IRS rule would be nullified and the CRA’s bar on reissuing a rule in “substantially the same” form would constrain the agency’s ability to achieve the same fee change without express congressional authorization. For estates, tax practitioners, and IRS operations, that combination alters both immediate billing expectations and the agency’s path to adjust user-fee-funded services in the future.
At a Glance
What It Does
The resolution exercises Congress’s disapproval power under chapter 8 of title 5 to invalidate the IRS’s “Estate Tax Closing Letter User Fee Update” rule (90 Fed. Reg. 21410). The bill’s operative sentence states that the identified rule “shall have no force or effect.”
Who It Affects
Directly affected parties include estate representatives and fiduciaries who request IRS estate-tax closing letters, tax preparers and law firms that submit those requests on clients’ behalf, and the IRS units that collect and administer the associated user fee. Treasury’s budget and IRS fee-funded programs are also implicated.
Why It Matters
Beyond nullifying a single fee update, the resolution uses the CRA to limit the IRS’s ability to implement similar fee changes going forward without explicit congressional approval, which has implications for how the agency funds discrete services and for stakeholders who pay or depend on those fees.
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What This Bill Actually Does
This joint resolution is narrowly targeted: it identifies a single IRS rule by title and Federal Register citation and declares that rule void under the Congressional Review Act. It does not amend tax law, change estate tax liabilities, or set an alternative fee; its only legal effect is to negate the specified ruleif the resolution becomes law.
Under the CRA framework invoked by the resolution, Congress may pass a joint resolution to disapprove a rule submitted by an agency. If the resolution becomes law, the named rule is treated as having no force or effect.
The CRA also contains a collateral consequence: the agency cannot issue a new rule that is “substantially the same” as the disapproved rule unless Congress specifically authorizes it; that restriction is built into the CRA and thus becomes operative if disapproval is enacted.Practically, stakeholders who had adjusted processes to the IRS’s updated fee—or who expected a new fee level to apply to future requests—would have that rule removed. The resolution does not provide guidance on refunds, grandfathering, or how the IRS should handle fee payments collected under the now-disapproved rule; those operational questions would fall to the IRS and Treasury to resolve administratively, and could trigger further agency guidance or litigation.
The resolution is procedural in form but consequential in effect: it removes the administrative fee-change vehicle while leaving broader estate-tax law and the IRS’s underlying authority untouched.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The joint resolution cites and targets the IRS rule published at 90 Fed. Reg. 21410 (May 20, 2025) titled “Estate Tax Closing Letter User Fee Update.”, The operative language is singular and absolute: it declares that the identified rule “shall have no force or effect.”, The resolution invokes chapter 8 of title 5, U.S. Code — the Congressional Review Act — as the statutory basis for disapproval.
If enacted, the CRA’s downstream prohibition prevents the IRS from promulgating a new rule that is “substantially the same” as the disapproved rule unless Congress authorizes it.
The resolution contains no substitute fee schedule, refund mechanism, or operational instructions for how the IRS should treat fees already collected or pending under the disapproved rule.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Identification and procedural posture
The introductory language identifies the bill as a joint resolution presented to Congress under the Congressional Review Act (chapter 8, title 5). Although brief, that reference is legally significant because it determines the statutory pathway and consequences available to Congress for reversing an agency rule. The preamble anchors the resolution to the CRA process rather than to an independent substantive amendment of the Internal Revenue Code.
Congressional disapproval of the named IRS rule
This clause names the IRS rule by title and Federal Register citation and states that Congress disapproves it. The effect of adoption and enactment would be to treat the specified rule as null — removing its legal force nationwide. The clause is narrowly framed: it does not attempt to review other IRS actions or amend substantive tax statutes.
No force or effect and downstream restrictions
The resolution’s final sentence declares that the rule “shall have no force or effect.” Under the CRA, that declaration also activates a statutory bar: the agency cannot issue a new rule that is substantially the same as the disapproved rule without express congressional authorization. Practically, that restricts the IRS’s route to achieve equivalent fee changes through a rephrased regulation.
What the resolution leaves unaddressed
The text contains no language about refunds, transitional arrangements, or replacement fee authorities. It likewise does not appropriate funds or direct the IRS to take specific administrative steps after disapproval. That omission leaves a set of operational questions to the agency and Treasury and may require subsequent administrative guidance or congressional action to resolve practical consequences.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Estate representatives and fiduciaries — they avoid the application of a newly issued user-fee rule while the rule is nullified, preserving the status quo cost expectations for obtaining IRS estate-tax closing letters.
- Individual estate beneficiaries — to the extent executors would have passed higher fees through to estates, nullification protects estate assets from an immediate, rule-driven fee increase.
- Tax practitioners and law firms that prepare estate filings — they retain established pricing and billing practices and avoid adjusting client estimates to reflect the new fee while the rule is invalidated.
- Consumer and taxpayer advocates — groups concerned about fee increases or access to tax administration services gain a policy win that preserves current fee structures absent congressional approval.
Who Bears the Cost
- Internal Revenue Service — the IRS loses an administrative tool to update user fees, which may reduce expected fee revenue and complicate budgeting for fee-funded services.
- Department of the Treasury — if the fee update was intended to cover program costs, nullification can shift those costs onto appropriations or force program-level adjustments.
- Taxpayers at large — if fee-funded services remain underfunded, the IRS may slow processing or shift costs to appropriations, potentially impacting other taxpayer services or creating indirect fiscal effects.
- IRS operations and staff — practical consequences of losing a fee update include resource constraints and potential process changes that could slow issuance of closing letters and related casework.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between congressional control over regulatory fees (protecting payers from agency actions taken without explicit legislative consent) and the administrative need for agencies to set user fees that reflect service costs; disapproval defends near-term cost predictability for payers while potentially undermining an agency’s ability to fund and manage the services those fees were meant to support.
The resolution uses a blunt tool to produce a narrow outcome: nullify one administrative fee rule. That leads to classic CRA tensions.
On the one hand, disapproval protects current payers from a regulatory fee change enacted without Congress’s direct approval; on the other hand, it removes a mechanism an agency might need to align user charges with actual service costs, potentially creating underfunding for discrete services. Because the resolution does not provide a replacement fee scheme or operational instructions, the IRS and Treasury must decide how to treat payments collected under the disapproved rule, whether to refund or reattribute them, and how to operate the affected services going forward — questions the resolution leaves unanswered.
Another unresolved implementation issue is the practical meaning of the CRA’s “substantially the same” bar in this context. That statutory prohibition has produced litigation and agency caution in the past: agencies frequently face uncertainty about whether subsequent rulemaking would trigger the prohibition.
If Congress disapproves this fee update, determining whether a future IRS proposal is substantially the same could generate legal challenges or force Congress to provide explicit authorization for any similar fee structure. Finally, because the resolution targets a fee-update rule (as opposed to a substantive change in tax liability), stakeholders may litigate whether the underlying action properly qualified as a rule subject to CRA review or whether particular administrative or notice procedures were followed — creating additional legal complexity beyond the simple disapproval.
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