Treasury Regulations · 26 CFR
§ 301.7701-6. Definitions; person, fiduciary.
Regulation text, no changes From the eCFR, current as of October 15, 2026. The eCFR is an authoritative but unofficial editorial compilation of the Code of Federal Regulations; the official text is the annual CFR on govinfo. Compare it with this section on ecfr.gov (external site) or the official annual CFR on govinfo (external site).
Regulation under 26 U.S.C. § 7701
Cite as 26 CFR § 301.7701-6
At a glance
Read from the text and its source citation. Not part of the regulation.
- Status
- In the current eCFR
- Issued
- December 18, 1996 by T.D. 8697
- Issued under
- 26 U.S.C. § 7701
- Length
- 272 words · about 1 min to read
- Defines
- 1 term
¶(a) Person. The term person includes an individual, a corporation, a partnership, a trust or estate, a joint-stock company, an association, or a syndicate, group, pool, joint venture, or other unincorporated organization or group. The term also includes a guardian, committee, trustee, executor, administrator, trustee in bankruptcy, receiver, assignee for the benefit of creditors, conservator, or any person acting in a fiduciary capacity.
¶(b) Fiduciary—
¶(1) In general. Fiduciary is a term that applies to persons who occupy positions of peculiar confidence toward others, such as trustees, executors, and administrators. A fiduciary is a person who holds in trust an estate to which another has a beneficial interest, or receives and controls income of another, as in the case of receivers. A committee or guardian of the property of an incompetent person is a fiduciary.
¶(2) Fiduciary distinguished from agent. There may be a fiduciary relationship between an agent and a principal, but the word agent does not denote a fiduciary. An agent having entire charge of property, with authority to effect and execute leases with tenants entirely on his own responsibility and without consulting his principal, merely turning over the net profits from the property periodically to his principal by virtue of authority conferred upon him by a power of attorney, is not a fiduciary within the meaning of the Internal Revenue Code. In cases when no legal trust has been created in the estate controlled by the agent and attorney, the liability to make a return rests with the principal.
¶(c) Effective date. The rules of this section are effective as of January 1, 1997.
[T.D. 8697, 61 FR 66593, Dec. 18, 1996]
Terms defined here
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Amendment history
From the source citation at the end of the section, newest first. T.D. is a Treasury decision; FR is the Federal Register.
- Issued by T.D. 8697 (61 FR 66593)
Where it sits in 26 CFR
- Subchapter F Procedure and administration
- Part 301 Procedure and administration
- Subpart ECFR5ffaf3310af6b61 Definitions
Nearby sections
- § 301.7701-2 Business entities; definitions.
- § 301.7701-3 Classification of certain business entities.
- § 301.7701-4 Trusts.
- § 301.7701-5 Domestic and foreign business entities.
- § 301.7701-6 Definitions; person, fiduciary.
- § 301.7701-7 Trusts—domestic and foreign.
- § 301.7701-8 Military or naval forces and Armed Forces of the United States.
- § 301.7701-9 Secretary or his delegate.
- § 301.7701-10 District director.