What If The IRS Changes Mailing Addresses?

 

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.

You Can Start Filing Tax Returns Today

Today the IRS finally starts accepting 2012 individual tax return filings.  It is January 30, 2013.

Why so late? You recall that Congress passed, and the President signed, a tax bill on January 1, 2013. This tax bill was retroactive to 2012. While the IRS tried to anticipate what would be in the bill, to do so exactly is nearly impossible. The IRS in turn separated the tax changes into two categories: those affecting the most people and the balance of the changes. It has programmed those changes with the widest effect, and this first category of taxpayers can begin filing today.

So if you claim state sales tax (because your state does not have an income tax), claim an education deduction or claim schoolteacher expenses, you can begin filing today.

What if you claim depreciation, own and rent a duplex or have a kid in college and claim an education tax credit (rather than a deduction)? You are in the second group and have to wait until late February or March. Your tax preparer can prepare your tax return, but he/she cannot send it to the IRS until then.

Here is the list of tax changes and forms included in the second category, if you wish to labor through them:

• Form 3800 General Business Credit
• Form 4136 Credit for Federal Tax Paid on Fuels
• Form 4562 Depreciation and Amortization (Including Information on Listed Property)
• Form 5074 Allocation of Individual Income Tax to Guam or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
• Form 5471 Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Corporations
• Form 5695 Residential Energy Credits
• Form 5735 American Samoa Economic Development Credit 
• Form 5884 Work Opportunity Credit
• Form 6478 Credit for Alcohol Used as Fuel
• Form 6765 Credit for Increasing Research Activities
• Form 8396 Mortgage Interest Credit
• Form 8582 Passive Activity Loss Limitations
• Form 8820 Orphan Drug Credit
• Form 8834 Qualified Plug-in Electric and Electric Vehicle Credit
• Form 8839 Qualified Adoption Expenses
• Form 8844 Empowerment Zone and Renewal Community Employment Credit
• Form 8845 Indian Employment Credit
• Form 8859 District of Columbia First-Time Homebuyer Credit
• Form 8864 Biodiesel and Renewable Diesel Fuels Credit
• Form 8874 New Markets Credits
• Form 8900 Qualified Railroad Track Maintenance Credit
• Form 8903 Domestic Production Activities Deduction
• Form 8908 Energy Efficient Home Credit
• Form 8909 Energy Efficient Appliance Credit
• Form 8910 Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit
• Form 8911 Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit
• Form 8912 Credit to Holders of Tax Credit Bonds
• Form 8923 Mine Rescue Team Training Credit
• Form 8932 Credit for Employer Differential Wage Payments
• Form 8936 Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit

There is some rhyme or reason to what the IRS is doing. Category two changes require more extensive programming. In addition, those tax attributes tend to appear on more complicated returns. These returns – as a rule of thumb – are prepared later in the filing season or are extended.