I am looking at case filings in the Tax Court electronic filing system.
Not mine, thankfully.
It reminds me of something.
Tax CPAs (likely) use professional preparation software. Over the years I have used several myself. Recent years have introduced the “suites,” whereby preparation software is bundled with other software (research, time and billing, practice management, yada yada). It makes it almost impossible to change, as one then has to change almost all practice software and also learn a new suite It is a monumental pain.
The preparation software has updates, of course. Sometimes I would see a prior year updating, beggaring the question: why? Why is the 2021 preparation software updating in 2025, for example?
Let talk about Boparai. As I write this, there have been 40 back-and-forth filings with the IRS, with the first one starting last spring (May 27, 2025). Rosie Boparai recently lost a motion, and this case will not go to trial.
Rosie extended her 2019 tax return from April 15, 2020 to October 15, 2020.
Rosie did not file a return, however.
Three years later (on July 17, 2023) she appeared in person at the Sacramento Taxpayer Assistance Center and attempted to hand-deliver her 2019 tax return. The TAC employees refused to accept her return, however, because she had not made an appointment.
COMMENT: I have a serious problem here. I can see if someone has a tax issue that needs research and investigation, but Rosie was just dropping off a paper return. Someone could have stamped it received and put it into the processing pipe. Is it unconventional? Yes, but so what? A taxpayer tried to comply.
Facing failure at the TAC, Rosie put the return in the mail. The return showed a refund, but she included a check for $10,000. Rosie was figuring that – sending money and simultaneously requesting a refund – someone would pay attention to her return.
NOTE: Consider the calendar here. The return was due April 15, 2020. It was extended until October 15, 2020. She put it in the mail July 17, 2023. As long as that extension was valid, Rosie is within the three-year statute of limitations for her 2019 refund.
Rosie mailed that return to San Francisco.
An average person would say she filed. A bit late, yes, but still within the rules.
Problem: the IRS closed its Fresno and San Francisco mailing addresses by the end of 2021.
This would not have been a problem had she filed her 2019 return on time.
The post office marked the envelope as undeliverable. Rosie asserted she never received the returned mail.
The IRS issued a NOD in February 2025.
Rosie filed a petition in Tax Court.
She also filed (or refiled, possibly) her 2019 return in May 2025.
The IRS agreed that Rosie did not owe money. The IRS however had no intention of refunding her 2019 overpayment. You know why: the return was filed outside the three-year statute of limitations.
Rosie was in Tax Court fighting to have her July 17, 2023 TAC visit/mailing to San Francisco count as filing her return.
Here is Reg 301.7502-1(c)(1):
That “properly addressed to the agency, officer, or office” language was brutal to Rosie.
A return filed in 2023 (yes, that would include a 2019 return filed in 2023) should have gone to Ogden, Utah or Cincinnati, Ohio.
Not San Francisco.
The return was not “properly addressed.”
July 17, 2023 did not count.
Which meant that Rosie had not filed her return within the three-year window. There would be no refund.
My thoughts?
The Court was right.
A lot of tax is procedural: correct form, correct date, address and so on. Rosie missed a step.
I also see Rosie being denied at the TAC as IRS negligence, impeding her attempt to comply and causing her irreparable harm.
My argument is one of equity. The Tax Court is not a court of equity, however; it is a court of law. A court of equity can … bend … the law a smidge to get to fairness. The Tax Court does not have this wiggle room. It has to follow the rules.
I expect cases like this to go away with electronic filing. Oh, I suppose there might be the oddball case here or there where the software glitches, but that should be rare.
And there is a reason why I see my preparation software updating several years after the fact.
Today we looked at the DAWSON filings for Boparai v Commissioner, Docket No. 7789-25.
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