response 49 of 127:

Jul 21 18:23 UTC 1998

Aaron:  If the IRS recognized our status in a non-retroactive way it would
*never* be as of the date of their letter of recognition.  It would be as of
the date when the application was postmarked, or, if there wasn't a
recognizable postmark, as of the date that it was received by the IRS office.

As it happens, there is a whole page of the application form that is all about
determining when the status starts.  You check the one that you think applies
to you.  The last one on the list is for non-retroactive status, as described
in the previous paragraph.  We didn't check that one.  What I checked was the
second-to-last one, the "good faith" exception to the normal filing time
limits, which I felt we qualified for.  This does give retroactive status.
Apparantly the IRS thought so to, since they accepted the application as
filed, without amendments.