The December 15 hearing on the §25F rules is now phone-only: how to testify or listen in

The public hearing on Treasury's proposed §25F regulations is moving to the phone. In a notice filed for Federal Register public inspection on November 10, 2026, and scheduled to publish November 12 (Doc. 2026-23032), the IRS says the hearing set for Tuesday, December 15, at 10 a.m. Eastern “has been changed to a telephonic-only hearing.” The date and start time stay put. What's gone is the in-person session in the auditorium of the Internal Revenue Building, 1111 Constitution Avenue NW in Washington, which the October 2 notice offered alongside a phone line. The notice doesn't give a reason for the change.

The deadlines haven't moved. Written comments on the proposed rules (REG-117199-25) are still due December 1, 2026, and so are requests to speak. To testify, you send an outline of the topics you'll cover and the time you'll spend on each by December 1, under the IRS hearing rules at 26 CFR 601.601(a)(3). Each speaker gets 10 minutes. Requests go to publichearings@irs.gov; the October notice's example subject line for a phone request is “Request to TESTIFY Telephonically at Hearing for REG-117199-25.” The October notice also said that if no outlines arrive by December 1, the hearing will be canceled with a notice in the Federal Register, and the new notice leaves that in place.

If you already signed up, you're covered. Anyone who asked to testify before the change, in person or by phone, will get the call-in number and access codes, and so will anyone who makes a timely request to testify by phone from here on. People who emailed to attend, in person or by phone, “do not need to make a second request,” the notice says; the IRS will email them the number and code.

To listen without testifying. Email publichearings@irs.gov by 5 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, December 10, with REG-117199-25 and “ATTEND Hearing Telephonically” in the subject line. The IRS's own example is “Request to ATTEND Hearing Telephonically for REG-117199-25.” Requests for disability accommodations go to the same address, or to (202) 317-6901, by Wednesday, December 9, and other questions about speaking or attending can go to the same inbox. One smaller change from October: the speaker agenda, drawn up after the outline deadline passes, will be posted on the regulations.gov docket under Supporting & Related Material, where the October notice had said copies would be available at the hearing.

What to spend 10 minutes on. A comment letter can run as long as it needs to. A speaker gets 10 minutes on a phone line, so the hearing rewards one narrow, well-supported point. For SGO operators, the questions Treasury itself flagged are where the final rule is most likely to move: how an organization measures whether 85% of its activities are scholarship granting (which decides whether it can test the 90% rule against its §25F account alone), digital wallets and how scholarship spending gets verified, which state or tribal benefit programs should join SNAP, TANF, WIC, Section 8 and SSI on the income-verification list, and the certifications a state makes for each SGO it lists. Our comment guide quotes each of those requests. And a rulemaking isn't a vote: the docket passed 22,400 public comments by November 9, and Treasury has to answer the substance of significant comments, not count them.

The launch doesn't wait on the hearing. Taxpayers, SGOs and states may rely on the proposed rules for contributions made starting January 1, 2027, and the companion temporary regulations on state elections, SGO lists, IRS registration and donor acknowledgments take effect without a comment period and apply from September 1, 2026. Final regulations come after the comments and the hearing, and Treasury hasn't set a date for them. States still owe the IRS their 2027 SGO lists by February 15, 2027. See where your state stands on the state map, follow the official SGO lists as states fill them in, and keep building with the free SGO Builder. The full proposed text is in our archive of the proposed regulations.