IRS Delegation Orders: Which Employee Is Allowed to Approve What

Every IRS employee who acts on your account is exercising authority someone delegated to them. That authority has limits, and the limits are written down.

They are called delegation orders. They name the action, the job titles or grades that may take it and whether the authority can be passed further down. If you want to know whether the person in front of you can actually say yes, or actually do what they are threatening, this is where you look.

Where delegation orders live

IRM 1.11.6.2 (rev. 2025-09-02) lists servicewide policy statements and delegations of authority among the topics the IRM covers, located in IRM 1.2, Servicewide Policies and Authorities.

The servicewide delegations are collected in IRM 1.2.2 (rev. 2026-06-29). Collection authorities are grouped in IRM 1.2.2.6, Delegations of Authority for the Collecting Process. As of the current revision, that subsection contains Delegation Order 5-1 on offers in compromise, 5-2 on preparing or executing returns, 5-3 on levies on property in the hands of third parties, 5-4 on federal tax lien certificates and 5-6 on petitions for remission.

Each order follows a pattern. It states the authority, lists who it is delegated to and says whether it may be redelegated. Most collection authorities I review say the same thing on that last point: this authority may not be redelegated.

Example one: who can accept an offer in compromise

Delegation Order 5-1 (Rev. 5), in IRM 1.2.2.6.1, governs accepting, rejecting, returning and terminating offers in compromise. Its authorities are numbered, 1 through 10 for acceptance, 11 through 20 for rejection, 21 and 22 for returns, 23 and 24 for terminations and 25 for withdrawals.

The dollar line matters. Authority 1 covers accepting doubt as to collectibility offers when the assessed liability is $250,000 or more, and it is delegated to the SB/SE Director of Collection Policy, the national program manager for offers, Collection offer territory managers, centralized offer operations managers and Appeals area directors. Authority 2 covers the same kind of offer when the liability is less than $250,000 and reaches down to Collection offer group managers, centralized offer team managers and Appeals team managers.

Offers involving IRS employees are handled separately under Authority 6, at the territory manager level and above. Authority 9 covers signing acceptance letters for offers deemed accepted under the 24 month rule in IRC 7122(f).

Notice who is not on these lists. The offer examiner who works your offer and talks to you is not the person with acceptance authority. They recommend. A manager with delegated authority decides.

Example two: who can levy what

Delegation Order 5-3 (Rev. 1), in IRM 1.2.2.6.3, is the levy delegation. It is a ladder, and the higher the stakes, the higher the rung.

Issuing notices of intent to levy and notices of the right to a Collection Due Process hearing is delegated broadly, including to Revenue Officers, tax examiners and collection representatives responsible for collection matters. Issuing ordinary levies on property held by third parties is delegated to employees including GS-09 Revenue Officers and GS-06 tax examiners and collection representatives.

Levies on retirement income, benefit income and Social Security income go to a narrower group, including collection managers and GS-09 Revenue Officers. Levies on the income of both spouses living in the same household and on the cash loan value of life insurance require a group manager level, including Revenue Officer group managers.

Jeopardy levies, where the normal pre-levy waiting periods have not run or a protective condition such as a pending installment agreement or offer exists, are delegated to territory managers and second-level managers, and the order requires concurrence of Area Counsel.

And levies on funds in pension and retirement plans, including IRAs, that withdraw the funds as a lump sum are delegated up to SB/SE Directors of Collection Area and similar directors.

The release side is broad. Authority to release notices of levy on property held by third parties reaches GS-05 Revenue Officers, tax examiners and collection representatives, and others.

Saying no has its own ladder

Rejection authority is delegated too, and it is not always at the same level as acceptance. Under Delegation Order 5-1, Authority 11 lets Collection offer group managers and centralized offer team managers reject doubt as to collectibility offers. Rejecting an offer on the ground that acceptance is not in the best interest of the government, Authority 13, sits higher, at the territory and operations manager level.

Returning an offer without a decision on the merits is its own authority. Authority 21 covers returns for failure to provide financial information, failure to make required estimated tax payments, failure to make required offer payments or failure to pay the application fee. A returned offer is not a rejected offer, and the difference matters because only certain decisions carry appeal rights.

And when an offer rejection is appealed, Authority 20 delegates the power to sustain the rejection to Appeals team managers. The authority to say no a final time sits in a different organization from the one that said no the first time.

Why the grade levels matter

These orders explain a lot of collection behavior. When a Revenue Officer says they need to get approval, they may be telling the literal truth: the action may be above their delegated authority. When an ACS assistor says they cannot do something, the limit may be in a delegation order or in the IRM procedures that implement it.

They also let you test a threat. If someone says they will levy your IRA tomorrow, the delegation order tells you that a lump-sum retirement plan levy sits at the director level in the levy order. That does not make it impossible. It tells you who has to sign it and that there is a review layer between the threat and the action.

A taxpayer who knows the approval chain asks better questions. Who approves this? Has it been approved? When?

Delegation orders and the IRM work together

Delegation orders say who may act. The IRM procedural sections say how and when. You usually need both.

A Revenue Officer may have delegated authority to issue a levy, but the procedures in IRM Part 5 still require the pre-levy notices, timing and documentation. A group manager may have authority to approve a resolution, but IRM 1.4.50.5.2.5 tells that manager to review the file and verification before approving.

The IRM's own process rules depend on delegations too. IRM 1.11.2.2.3 (current through 2026-06-09) says deviations from national program guidance require approval under Delegation Order 1-69, the order on authorizing Internal Management Documents, which is reproduced in IRM 1.2.2.2.53.

How to read one yourself

Open IRM 1.2.2 on IRS.gov. Find the part number that matches the business process: delegation orders in the 5 series cover collection. Read the authority line carefully, because the scope is often narrower than it first appears. A delegation to accept offers below a dollar threshold says nothing about offers above it.

Then read the delegated to line for the job title and grade. Then read the redelegation line. If it says the authority may not be redelegated, an employee below the listed level cannot exercise it on someone else's behalf.

Finally, check the order's revision and date, and whether recent delegation orders have been posted in the IRS.gov FOIA Library, which IRM 1.11.6.4.1 says houses recent delegation orders and policy statements not yet incorporated into the public IRM.

Authority is not a feeling. It is a document. Read it. For how the rest of the manual is organized, see How to Read the Internal Revenue Manual Like an IRS Employee.