Form 8900

Department of the Treasury 

Internal Revenue Service

Qualified Railroad Track Maintenance Credit

▶ Attach to your tax return. 

▶ Information about Form 8900 and its instructions is at www.irs.gov/form8900.

OMB No. 1545-1983

2013

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 

For Paperwork Reduction Act Notice, see instructions. Cat. No. 37708X Form 8900 (2013)

General Instructions

Section references are to the Internal Revenue Code 

unless otherwise noted.

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 

 
Form 8900 (2013) Page 2

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).

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, 

your credit is determined on a proportionate basis to your 

share of the aggregate QRTME taken into account by the 

group for the 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;
Form 8900 (2013) Page 3

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.