Form 8900

Department of the Treasury 

Internal Revenue Service

Qualified Railroad Track Maintenance Credit

▶ Attach to your tax return.

OMB No. 1545-1983

2011

Attachment 

Sequence No. 144

Name(s) shown on return Identifying number

1 Qualified railroad track maintenance expenditures paid or incurred 

(see instructions) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

2 Enter 50% (.50) of line 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 

3 a Number of miles of railroad track owned or leased by you (see 

instructions) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3a 

b Less: number of miles of railroad track owned or leased by you and 

assigned to other eligible taxpayers for purposes of this credit. See 

instructions for more information, including required statement . . . 3b ( )

c Number of miles of railroad track assigned to you by the owner or 

lessee for purposes of this credit. See instructions for more 

information, including required statement . . . . . . . . . 3c 

d Total. Combine lines 3a through 3c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ▶ 3d

4 Multiply line 3d by $3,500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 

5 Enter the smaller of line 2 or line 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 

6 Qualified railroad track maintenance credit from partnerships and S corporations . . . . . . 6 

7 Add lines 5 and 6. Partnerships and S corporations, report this amount on Schedule K. All 

others, report this amount on Form 3800, line 4g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 

General Instructions

Section references are to the Internal Revenue Code unless 

otherwise noted.

What’s New

The carryforwards, carrybacks, and passive activity limitations 

for this credit are no longer reported on this form; instead, they 

must be reported on Form 3800, General Business Credit.

Who Must File

Eligible taxpayers use Form 8900 to claim the railroad track 

maintenance credit (RTMC) for qualified railroad track 

maintenance expenditures (QRTME) paid or incurred during the 

tax year. If you are an assignor of miles of eligible railroad track, 

you must file Form 8900 even if you do not claim any RTMC. 

See the instructions for line 3b for the additional information that 

must be provided by assignors.

Taxpayers, other than partnerships and S corporations, 

whose only source of this credit is from a partnership or 

S corporation, are not required to complete or file this form. 

Instead, they can report this credit directly on Form 3800.

Definitions

Eligible taxpayers include:

1. Any Class II or Class III railroad, as these terms are defined 

by the Surface Transportation Board.

2. Any person (including a Class I railroad (see below)) who 

transports property using the rail facilities of a Class II or Class 

III railroad.

3. Any person (including a Class I railroad (see below)) who 

furnishes railroad-related services or property to a Class II or 

Class III railroad.

For purposes of 2 or 3 above, the taxpayer is only eligible to 

claim the credit for miles of eligible railroad track assigned to it 

by a Class II or Class III railroad for purposes of the credit. See 

the instructions for line 3c.

Class I railroads include only the following seven entities:

• BNSF,

• CSX,

• Grand Trunk Corporation (a holding company for all of 

Canadian National’s U.S. railroad operations),

• Kansas City Southern,

• Norfolk Southern,

• Soo Line (owned by Canadian Pacific), and

• Union Pacific.

Rail facilities of a Class II or Class III railroad are railroad yards, 

tracks, bridges, tunnels, wharves, docks, stations, and other 

related assets that are used in the transport of freight by a 

railroad and owned or leased by that railroad.

Railroad-related property is property that is provided directly 

to a Class II or Class III railroad and is unique to railroads. For a 

complete description, see Regulations section 1.45G-1(b)(7).

Railroad-related services are services that are provided 

directly to, and are unique to, a railroad and that relate to 

railroad shipping, loading and unloading of railroad freight, or 

repairs of rail facilities or railroad-related property. For examples 

of what are and what are not railroad-related services, see 

Regulations section 1.45G-1(b)(8).

Eligible railroad track is railroad track located within the United 

States that is owned or leased by a Class II or Class III railroad 

at the close of its tax year. The railroad is treated as owning the 

railroad track if it is subject to depreciation under section 167 by 

the railroad. Double track is treated as multiple lines of railroad 

track, rather than as a single line of railroad track. That is, one 

mile of single track is one mile, but one mile of double track is 

two miles.

Qualifying railroad structure is property located within the 

United States that includes, in part, tunnels, bridges, and 

railroad track. For a complete description, see Regulations 

section 1.45G-1(b)(4).

For Paperwork Reduction Act Notice, see instructions. Cat. No. 37708X Form 8900 (2011)
Form 8900 (2011) Page 2

QRTME are expenditures (whether or not otherwise chargeable 

to a capital account) for maintaining, repairing, and improving a 

qualifying railroad structure that is owned or leased as of 

January 1, 2005, by a Class II or Class III railroad. If you paid or 

incurred QRTME during the tax year, you do not have to reduce 

that QRTME by any amount of direct or indirect reimbursement 

to which you are entitled from a Class II or Class III railroad 

which made an assignment of eligible railroad track to you.

Adjustments to Basis

Some or all of the QRTME paid or incurred by an eligible 

taxpayer may be required to be capitalized as a tangible asset 

or an intangible asset, if applicable. See Regulations section 

1.45G-1(e)(1).

Use the amount of RTMC to reduce the basis of a qualifying 

railroad structure (including railroad track) asset or intangible 

asset, if applicable. The reduction is limited to the amount of 

QRTME capitalized for the asset. For further details, see 

Regulations section 1.45G-1(e)(2).

Member of Controlled Group or Business Under 

Common Control

For purposes of figuring the credit, all members of a “controlled 

group of corporations” and all members of a “group of 

businesses under common control” are treated as a single 

taxpayer. See Regulations section 1.45G-1(f)(2) for a definition 

of these terms. As a member, compute your credit based on 

your proportionate share of QRTME giving rise to the group’s 

RTMC. Enter your share of the credit on line 5. Attach a 

statement showing how your share of the credit was figured, 

and write “See Attached” next to the entry space for line 5.

Specific Instructions

Line 1

Qualified railroad track maintenance expenditures must be paid 

or incurred by an eligible taxpayer during the tax year.

The payment by an eligible taxpayer, as an assignee, to a 

Class II or Class III railroad, as an assignor, in exchange for an 

assignment of miles of eligible railroad track for purposes of the 

credit computation is treated as QRTME paid or incurred by the 

assignee and not the assignor.

Line 3a (This line only applies to you if you are a Class II or 

Class III railroad.)

Enter the number of eligible railroad track miles (see Eligible 

railroad track above) owned or leased by you.

Line 3b (This line only applies to you if you are a Class II or 

Class III railroad.)

You must reduce on line 3b the number of miles of eligible 

railroad track entered on line 3a that you assigned to another 

eligible taxpayer for purposes of the credit computation. You 

can only assign each mile of railroad track once during your tax 

year. Each mile of railroad track that you assign is treated as 

being assigned on the last day of your tax year.

An assigned mile of eligible railroad track need not 

correspond to any specific mile of eligible railroad track for 

which the eligible taxpayer actually pays or incurs the QRTME. 

Further, an assignment requires no transfer of legal title or other 

indicia of ownership of the eligible railroad track, and need not 

specify the location of any assigned mile of eligible railroad 

track. However, the following information must be provided for 

the assignment in the form of a statement attached to the tax 

return for the tax year for which the assignment is made.

• The name and taxpayer identification number of each 

assignee.

• The total number of miles of the assignor’s eligible railroad 

track.

• The number of miles of eligible railroad track assigned by the 

assignor for the tax year to the assignee.

• The total number of miles of eligible railroad track assigned by 

the assignor for the tax year to all assignees.

Line 3c

The following information must be provided for the assignment 

in the form of a statement attached to the tax return for the tax 

year for which the assignment is made.

• The total number of miles of eligible railroad track assigned to 

the assignee for the assignee’s tax year.

• Attestation that the assignee has in writing, and has retained 

as part of the assignee’s records for purposes of Regulations 

section 1.6001-1(a), the following information from each 

assignor:

a. The name and taxpayer identification number of each 

assignor;

b. The effective date of each assignment (treated as being 

made by the assignor at the end of its tax year) to the assignee; 

and

c. The number of miles of eligible railroad track assigned by 

each assignor to the assignee for the tax year of the assignee.

Notes. 1. The assignee cannot reassign miles.

2. If the assignor, in its required statement (see the 

instructions for line 3b above), assigns more miles 

than it has at the end of its tax year, the excess will be 

used to reduce each assignee’s allocation in the same 

proportion as the assignee’s original allocation of 

miles bears in relation to the total miles originally

assigned.

Paperwork Reduction Act Notice. We ask for the information 

on this form to carry out the Internal Revenue laws of the United 

States. You are required to give us the information. We need it 

to ensure that you are complying with these laws and to allow 

us to figure and collect the right amount of tax.

You are not required to provide the information requested on 

a form that is subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act unless 

the form displays a valid OMB control number. Books or 

records relating to a form or its instructions must be retained as 

long as their contents may become material in the 

administration of any Internal Revenue law. Generally, tax 

returns and return information are confidential, as required by 

section 6103.

The time needed to complete and file this form will vary 

depending on individual circumstances. The estimated burden 

for individual taxpayers filing this form is approved under OMB 

control number 1545-0074 and is included in the estimates 

shown in the instructions for their individual income tax return. 

The estimated burden for all other taxpayers who file this form is 

shown below.

Recordkeeping . . . . . . . . . . . 4 hr., 4 min.

Learning about the law or the form . . . . . . 53 min.

Preparing, and 

sending the form to the IRS . . . . . . . . . 1 hr.

If you have comments concerning the accuracy of these time 

estimates or suggestions for making this form simpler, we would 

be happy to hear from you. See the instructions for the tax 

return with which this form is filed.