The preamble to recently issued final regulations states that the IRS will not issue rulings on whether an investment is a "security" for purposes of the regulated investment company (RIC) qualification tests.

In May 2017, the IRS revoked a number of private letter rulings that had concluded that income from a commodity-linked note (CLN) is "good income" for purposes of the RIC qualification tests because the CLNs were "securities" under the 1940 Act.  The revocations indicated that the original rulings were no longer in accord with the IRS' views.