Question – Can our commercial association use the Revenue Ruling 70-604 election?
Answer - It depends. The Revenue Ruling refers only to a "condominium management corporation." It does not specifiy if this is a residential or commercial association, so I conclude that there is nothing to prevent a commercial association from making use of this election, assuming that it meets the other criteria for using the election.
Question – Can our timeshare association use the Revenue Ruling 70-604 election?
Answer - Probably not. Although your timeshare association qualifies as a condominium management corporation (see questions above), it probably does not meet other criteria.
As pointed out by the IRS in Technical Advice Memorandum 9539001, Revenue Ruling 70-604 specifically stated that the subject association's sole activity was to maintain the common areas, and that its bylaws permitted no other activity. Since most timeshare resorts have a scope of activity that extends far beyond maintenance of the common areas, timeshare associations are not similar to the subject association, so may not make use of Revenue Ruling 70-604.
It is a basic position of the IRS that revenue rulings may be applied only by substantially similar organizations that share the (substantially) same fact pattern.