Antawn Jamal Sanders ( 2023 )

United States Tax Court
160 T.C. No. 16ANTAWN JAMAL SANDERS,
Petitioner
v.
COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE,
Respondent
—————
Docket No. 25868-22. Filed June 20, 2023.
—————
P electronically filed a Petition through the Court’s
electronic filing system (DAWSON) at 12:00:11 a.m. on the
morning after it was due. P alleges that he encountered
problems when electronically filing his Petition and that
those problems caused the Petition to be untimely.
Held: DAWSON is a “filing location” for purposes of
I.R.C. § 7451.
Held, further, because DAWSON was not
inaccessible or otherwise unavailable to the general public
on P’s last day to file, and P filed his Petition after the due
date, we must dismiss this case as untimely.
—————
Antawn Jamal Sanders, pro se. 1
Clifford E. Howie and Tammie A. Geier, for respondent.
1 Brief amicus curiae was filed by Audrey A. Patten as attorney for the Center
for Taxpayer Rights.
Served 06/20/23
2
OPINION
BUCH, Judge: The Commissioner mailed a notice of deficiency to
Antawn Jamal Sanders, and the deadline to file a petition to seek
redetermination of the deficiency was December 12, 2022. Mr. Sanders
electronically filed his Petition 11 seconds after midnight on December
13, 2022.
A timely filed petition is a prerequisite to our jurisdiction in a
deficiency case. An electronically filed petition is timely if it is filed by
11:59 p.m. eastern time on the last day for filing. But if the Court’s
electronic filing system is inaccessible on the last day, the period for
filing is extended. Because the Court’s electronic filing system was
accessible on Mr. Sanders’s last day for filing, and he filed his Petition
after the last day had ended, we must dismiss this case for lack of
jurisdiction.
Background
The Commissioner mailed a notice of deficiency to Mr. Sanders on
September 8, 2022. Notwithstanding the actual mailing date, the notice
was dated September 12, 2022, and stated that the last day to file a
petition with this Court was December 12, 2022.
Mr. Sanders prepared to file his Petition electronically. Before
December 12, 2022, Mr. Sanders set up an account to electronically file
a petition through DAWSON, the Court’s electronic filing system. On
the evening of December 12, 2022, Mr. Sanders began the process of
electronically filing his Petition. At 9:59 p.m. EDT, he downloaded the
necessary PDF forms to his Android mobile phone, but he was unable to
fill out the forms on his phone.
Shortly after 11 p.m. on December 12, 2022, Mr. Sanders tried to
file his Petition from his phone. At 23:03:07.442 (11:03 p.m.), he logged
into DAWSON. 2 At 23:42:53.728 (11:42 p.m.), he logged in again.
Between 11:03 p.m., when Mr. Sanders first logged in, and 11:44 p.m.,
when he was logged out from his Android device for the rest of the
evening, he states that he attempted to upload documents, but
2 By Order dated March 21, 2023, the Court provided the parties with records
showing DAWSON activity through Mr. Sanders’s account, DAWSON activity from
Mr. Sanders’s Internet protocol address, and DAWSON activity near the time Mr.
Sanders filed his Petition. The Court stated its intent to take judicial notice of those
records, and neither party objected.
3
DAWSON “would not even allow [him] to click the button to upload the
documents from [his] android device even after several times of login in
and logging out.”
After trying to file the Petition from his phone, Mr. Sanders was
“finally able to switch” to his Windows computer shortly before
midnight. He was slowed down by “having to send the filled out forms”
from his phone to his email to be downloaded to his computer. 3 At
23:56:15.888 (11:56 p.m.), Mr. Sanders unsuccessfully attempted to log
in to DAWSON on his computer. However, within one second, another
Windows user successfully logged into DAWSON. Likewise at
23:57:21.379 (11:57 p.m.), Mr. Sanders successfully logged in as well.
After he logged in and started the filing process, Mr. Sanders was slowed
down by having “to do 3 other steps” before he could actually file his
Petition. 4 Additionally, he had to refer to the instructions several times.
Throughout this process and at all relevant times, DAWSON remained
fully operational. 5
While residing in North Carolina, Mr. Sanders filed the Petition
from his computer after midnight on December 13, 2022. At
00:00:09.493, he began the upload of the Petition, and at 00:00:11.693
(i.e., 11 seconds after midnight), it was filed. At the time of filing,
DAWSON automatically applied a cover sheet to the Petition that states
that the Petition was electronically filed and received at “12/13/22 12:00
am.”
The Commissioner filed a Motion to Dismiss for Lack of
Jurisdiction on January 25, 2023. The Commissioner argues that Mr.
Sanders’s case must be dismissed because his Petition was not timely
filed. The Commissioner contends that the period for timely filing ended
3 This statement is inconsistent with Mr. Sanders’s statement that he could
not fill out the forms on his phone. But because neither statement is material to the
outcome, we will accept both of these conflicting statements as true.
4 Electronically filing a petition is a multistep process. A taxpayer must log in
to DAWSON, select documents to be uploaded, enter biographical information, and
make various selections such as case type and place of trial, before uploading and
submitting the petition. See United States Tax Court, Self-Represented (Pro Se) User
Guide DAWSON Case Management System 12–19 (Apr. 2023), https://ustaxcourt.gov/
resources/dawson/DAWSON_Petitioner_Training_Guide.pdf.
5 The Court maintains a log of any DAWSON outages, and that log is publicly
available at United States Tax Court, https://status.ustaxcourt.gov/uptime/
726t4kw06kfh (last visited May 16, 2023). The log identifies both full and partial
outages and describes the nature and duration of any outages.
4
at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, December 12, 2022. The Commissioner further
contends that because Mr. Sanders initiated upload of the Petition after
12 a.m. on December 13, 2022, the Petition was not in the Court’s
possession and cannot be considered to have been filed until after the
deadline. Additionally, the Commissioner contends that DAWSON logs
show that DAWSON was accessible throughout the day on December
12, 2022, such that DAWSON, “as a filing location, cannot be considered
as having been inaccessible or unavailable to the general public for
purposes of section 7451(b).” 6
Mr. Sanders filed an Objection to the Commissioner’s Motion to
Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction on February 21, 2023. He states as
follows:
I object to this motion due to the fact that I logged in and
uploaded documents on time. On December 12, 2022 I
attempted several times to upload documents well before
midnight. Finally I was able to get it uploaded and it
literally did not finish the upload until exactly 12a.
I am sure it can be proven that the system had errors and
that my upload was loading before cut off time.
The Court invited briefs from amici curiae. The Center for
Taxpayer Rights, represented by the Tax Clinic at the Legal Services
Center of Harvard Law School, submitted an amicus brief. The amicus
principally offers two arguments. First, the amicus argues that Mr.
Sanders’s Petition should be treated as filed at the time that he
relinquished control of it. In making this argument, the amicus urges
the Court to adopt a position akin to the timely mailing rule of section
7502. Although the amicus does not ask the Court to apply equitable
tolling, it urges the Court to view the timeliness of an electronically filed
petition “through the lens of equitable tolling.”
6 Unless otherwise indicated, statutory references are to the Internal Revenue
Code, Title 26 U.S.C. (I.R.C.), in effect at all relevant times, regulation references are
to the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 26 (Treas. Reg.), in effect at all relevant times,
and Rule references are to the Tax Court Rules of Practice and Procedure.
5
Discussion
I. A Petition Must Be Timely Filed.
Like other federal courts, we are a Court of limited jurisdiction,
and we may exercise our jurisdiction only to the extent authorized by
Congress. I.R.C. § 7442; Guralnik v. Commissioner, 146 T.C. 230, 235
(2016); Naftel v. Commissioner, 85 T.C. 527, 529 (1985). Our jurisdiction
in deficiency cases is predicated on a valid notice of deficiency and a
timely petition. I.R.C. §§ 6213, 7442; Rules 13, 20; Dees v. Commissioner,
148 T.C. 1, 3–4 (2017). The Court cannot extend the deadline for filing a
petition, and we must dismiss a case for lack of jurisdiction if the petition
is not filed within the statutorily prescribed time. Hallmark Rsch.
Collective v. Commissioner, No. 21284-21, 159 T.C., slip op. at 42 (Nov.
29, 2022); Blum v. Commissioner, 86 T.C. 1128, 1131 (1986).
Section 6213(a) prescribes the time for filing a petition in
deficiency cases. Under section 6213(a), a petition must be filed within
90 days after the notice of deficiency is mailed (not counting Saturday,
Sunday, or a legal holiday in the District of Columbia as the last day).
See I.R.C. § 7503. If the notice of deficiency specifies a last day for filing
that is later than the 90th day, then the deadline by which to file a
petition is extended to the date specified. I.R.C. § 6213(a); Rochelle v.
Commissioner, 116 T.C. 356 (2001), aff’d, 293 F.3d 740 (5th Cir. 2002).
A. A Petition Is Generally Filed when Received.
A petition is ordinarily considered to have been filed when it is
received by the Tax Court. See, e.g., Leventis v. Commissioner, 49 T.C.
353, 354 (1968). Under Rule 22(d), an electronically filed petition “will
be considered timely filed if it is electronically filed at or before 11:59
p.m., eastern time, on the last day of the applicable period for filing.”
Because electronic filing is not limited to the Court’s business hours,
electronic filing systems may extend the number of hours available for
filing, but not the number of days. State Bank of S. Utah v. Beal (In re
Beal), No. 21-4124, 2022 WL 17661140, at *2 (10th Cir. Dec. 14, 2022),
aff’g State Bank of S. Utah v. Beal, 633 B.R. 398 (D. Utah 2021), aff’g
State Bank of S. Utah v. Beal (In re Beal), 616 B.R. 140 (Bankr. D. Utah
2020); Justice v. Town of Cicero, Ill., 682 F.3d 662, 664 (7th Cir. 2012);
Nutt v. Commissioner, No. 15959-22, 160 T.C., slip op. at 4–5 (May 2,
2023); see Rule 22(a).
Electronic filing is not accomplished merely by logging into the
system or beginning the filing process. See In re Sands, 328 B.R. 614,
6
619 (Bankr. N.D.N.Y. 2005). In In re Sands, 328 B.R. at 617–18, the
bankruptcy court addressed the issue of precisely when an electronic
filing occurs. In that case, a debtor’s attorney began the process of
electronically filing a petition shortly before it was due but did not
upload the petition until minutes after the deadline. Id. at 615–16. The
debtor contended that commencing the electronic filing process is
equivalent to “physically handing” the clerk a petition. Id. at 616. The
court disagreed, holding that an electronic petition is placed in the
clerk’s possession, and is thus “filed,” when the “server receives the
transmission.” Id. at 619. Likewise in Nutt, 160 T.C., slip op. at 3, we
held that an electronically filed petition is filed with this Court at the
time it is received.
Mr. Sanders’s Petition was not received within the time
prescribed by section 6213(a). Notwithstanding that the notice of
deficiency was mailed on September 8, 2022, Mr. Sanders’s last day to
file his petition was Monday, December 12, 2022, because section
6213(a) allows him to rely on the last day for filing that was specified in
the notice. Although he logged into DAWSON on December 12, 2022,
Mr. Sanders did not file his Petition until the next day. He initiated the
upload of the Petition 9 seconds after midnight on December 13, 2022,
and his Petition was received and filed at 11 seconds after midnight.
Because the Petition was not received by the Court until 11 seconds after
midnight, it was not timely under section 6213(a).
B. The Timely Mailing Rule Does Not Apply to Electronically
Filed Petitions.
The timely mailing rule is an exception to the general rule that
documents are filed when received. Under that rule, a document that is
properly mailed before the due date but received after the due date is
deemed to have been filed on the date it was postmarked. I.R.C.
§ 7502(a). The amicus urges that we find Mr. Sanders’s Petition timely
because he relinquished control over his Petition before the filing
deadline, a position that is analogous to the timely mailing rule of
section 7502. But we have previously held that the timely mailing rule
does not apply to an electronically filed petition. Nutt, 160 T.C., slip op.
at 4. 7
7 The Court issued its opinion in Nutt after the amicus mailed its brief to the
Court in this case.
7
Although section 7502 also contains a provision relating to
electronic filing, that provision does not apply to the electronic filing of
Tax Court petitions. When applicable, section 7502 relies on a postmark
or similar recorded date as evidence of mailing. I.R.C. § 7502(a)(1),
(f)(2)(C). Section 7502(c)(2) authorizes the Secretary to provide
regulations to apply this postmark rule to electronic filing. The
Secretary adopted regulations providing that an electronically filed
document is considered filed when the recipient “receives the
transmission of a taxpayer’s electronically filed document on its host
system.” Treas. Reg. § 301.7502-1(d)(3)(ii).
But the regulations are inapplicable to the filing of a Tax Court
petition. The Secretary’s regulations require the use of an authorized
electronic return transmitter. Id. subdiv. (i). None is involved in the
filing of a Tax Court petition.
Mr. Sanders’s Petition would be untimely even if we applied these
regulations or the amicus’s “relinquished control” argument. The
regulations would deem an electronically filed document to be filed when
the electronic record shows it was received. The electronic record shows
that Mr. Sanders’s Petition was received 11 seconds after midnight; thus
it would be untimely under the regulations that apply in the case of an
electronic return transmitter. And the Petition is untimely under the
amicus’s relinquished control argument. Mr. Sanders did not relinquish
control of his Petition until he initiated the upload 9 seconds after
midnight. In short, the narrow exceptions that might deem a petition to
be filed before the Court receives it are both legally and factually
inapplicable to this case.
II. An Otherwise Untimely Petition May Be Timely if the Clerk’s
Office or a Filing Location Is Inaccessible.
In circumstances where the Clerk’s office or a filing location is
inaccessible or otherwise unavailable to the general public, a taxpayer
may have additional time to file a petition. See I.R.C. § 7451(b);
Guralnik, 146 T.C. at 247. Mr. Sanders alleges that DAWSON system
errors prevented him from filing his Petition at or before 11:59 p.m. on
December 12, 2022. However, the Commissioner contends that
DAWSON, as a filing location, was not inaccessible or otherwise
unavailable to the general public on December 12, 2022.
8
A. The Tax Court Previously Held that Rule 6(a) of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure Applies if the Clerk’s Office Is
Inaccessible.
In Guralnik, we held that if the Tax Court Clerk’s office is
inaccessible on the last day for filing a petition, then the time for filing
is extended to the first accessible day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or
legal holiday. Guralnik, 146 T.C. at 232–33 (applying Fed. R. Civ.
P. 6(a)). In that case, the Tax Court was closed because of a winter storm
on the taxpayer’s last day to file a petition. Id. The taxpayer mailed his
petition, but the closure prevented the petition from being delivered on
the due date. It was delivered the following day when the Court
reopened. Id. at 233–34. We found that although Mr. Guralnik mailed
his petition to the Court, he could not take advantage of section 7502
(the “timely mailing rule”) because he did not use the U.S. Postal Service
or a designated delivery service. Guralnik, 146 T.C. at 242; see I.R.C.
§ 7502. But by applying the principles of Rule 6(a) of the Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure (Fed. R. Civ. P.), we concluded that the Clerk’s office
was inaccessible because of the snow day closure and held that the
petition was timely. Guralnik, 146 T.C. at 232–33.
B. Section 7451(b) Codifies Guralnik and Extends It to
Electronic Filing.
Although the timely mailing rule does not apply to electronically
filed petitions, Congress created a remedy for situations where a snow
day (as in Guralnik), a lapse in appropriations, or an electronic filing
system outage might interfere with timely filing a petition. See I.R.C.
§ 7451(b).
In late 2020, the Tax Court established an online portal for filing
petitions. The Tax Court made Congress aware of the development of its
new case management system in budget reports submitted in February
2020 and April 2021 for fiscal years 2021 and 2022, respectively. 8 The
former report stated that the Court was developing “a new electronic
filing and case management system” that would “provide operational
efficiencies and a user-friendly application for taxpayers and other
8 United States Tax Court, Congressional Budget Justification Fiscal Year
2021, at 15 (Feb. 10, 2020), https://ustaxcourt.gov/resources/budget_justification/
FY_2021_Congressional_Budget_Justification.pdf; United States Tax Court,
Congressional Budget Justification Fiscal Year 2022, at 17 (Apr. 5, 2021),
https://ustaxcourt.gov/resources/budget_justification/FY_2022_Congressional_Budget
_Justification.pdf.
9
external users.” Congressional Budget Justification Fiscal Year 2021,
at 15. The Court anticipated deploying that system in fiscal year 2020,
id. at 14, and the latter report informed Congress that DAWSON has
been deployed:
[O]n December 28, 2020, the Court successfully launched
DAWSON . . . providing base functionality for the Court
and parties to file and manage cases. DAWSON is an open-
source, web-based, and mobile-friendly application with
the ability to electronically file a petition to start a new
case, functionality not previously available. These features
make the Court more accessible for taxpayers and
practitioners.
Congressional Budget Justification Fiscal Year 2022, at 17. Notably, the
Court expressly highlighted that electronic filing of petitions was a
“functionality not previously available.”
Within a year after the Tax Court deployed DAWSON, Congress
enacted section 7451(b), which provides a special rule for tolling the
period for filing a petition. See Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,
Pub. L. No. 117-58, § 80503, 135 Stat. 429, 1336 (2021). Section
7451(b)(1) provides:
Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, in any
case (including by reason of a lapse in appropriations) in
which a filing location is inaccessible or otherwise
unavailable to the general public on the date a petition is
due, the relevant time period for filing such petition shall
be tolled for the number of days within the period of
inaccessibility plus an additional 14 days.
Section 7451(b)(2) defines “filing location” as “(A) the office of the clerk
of the Tax Court, or (B) any on-line portal made available by the Tax
Court for electronic filing of petitions.” DAWSON is a “filing location”
because it is an online portal the Tax Court has made available for the
electronic filing of petitions. See I.R.C. § 7451(b)(2)(B). Thus, the newly
enacted statute applies to situations of physical inaccessibility (such as
the snow day in Guralnik) and electronic inaccessibility of a system such
as DAWSON.
The parties disagree about whether DAWSON was inaccessible
or otherwise unavailable to the general public on the last day for Mr.
Sanders to file a petition. The statute does not define “inaccessible or
10
otherwise unavailable to the general public,” but we can look to other
courts and court rules to help us define that phrase. In the context of
Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)(3) and Rule 9006(a)(3) of the Federal Rules of
Bankruptcy Procedure (Fed. R. Bankr. P.), “inaccessibility” traditionally
refers to physical inaccessibility—that is, a courthouse closure caused
by “weather or other conditions.” In re Beal, 616 B.R. at 153; see
Guralnik, 146 T.C. at 245, 249. “The definition of inaccessibility
broadened with the advent of electronic filing.” In re Beal, 616 B.R.
at 153. Thus, in the 2009 amendments to Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)(3) and Fed.
R. Bankr. P. 9006(a)(3), “[t]he reference to ‘weather’ was deleted from
the text to underscore that inaccessibility can occur for reasons
unrelated to weather, such as an outage of the electronic filing system.”
Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9006 advisory committee’s note to 2009 amendment;
Fed. R. Civ. P. 6 advisory committee’s note to 2009 amendment; see In re
Beal, 616 B.R. at 154.
Although inaccessibility can include an outage of an electronic
filing system, federal courts have consistently held that inaccessibility
does not include user error or technical difficulties on the user’s side.
See, e.g., In re Beal, 616 B.R. 140. In In re Beal, 616 B.R. at 143, 147, a
bank’s attorney logged onto the electronic filing system at 11:40 p.m. on
the last day to file a complaint and filed the complaint 16 minutes after
midnight (i.e., the following day). The bank, relying on the attorney’s
testimony about perceived malfunctions with the electronic filing
system, argued that the complaint would have been timely but for those
malfunctions. Id. at 142, 150. But the attorney’s testimony was
inconsistent and sometimes unsupported, and court records showed that
the filing system was operational. Id. at 150–51, 155. For example, the
attorney logged in, experienced no technical difficulties until multiple
steps into the process, received error messages the system was designed
to produce, and filed a complaint about 36 minutes after logging into the
system. Id. at 143–44, 147, 151, 155. The district court explained that
the bankruptcy court found it “very unlikely for the system to be rapidly
toggling between short periods of functionality and error” and concluded
that any errors that occurred were on the user’s side. Beal, 633 B.R.
at 405. The bankruptcy court held that the electronic filing system was
accessible, and the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Tenth Circuit affirmed. In re Beal, 616 B.R. at 155; Beal, 633 B.R.
at 409–10; In re Beal, 2022 WL 17661140, at *5.
To determine whether section 7451 applies, we must distinguish
between the availability of the Court’s system and user-specific issues.
This approach is consistent whether looking to electronic or physical
11
inaccessibility. For example, in In re Sizemore, 341 B.R. 658, 660 (Bankr.
N.D. Ind. 2006), an attorney who filed an untimely petition on behalf of
a debtor asked the bankruptcy court to deem the petition to have been
timely filed. The attorney was unable to timely file because of problems
with his own software. Id. at 659. Looking to Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a) and
Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9006(a), the court acknowledged that filing deadlines
may be suspended if a weather-related court closure or other local
conditions render the clerk’s office physically inaccessible. In re
Sizemore, 341 B.R. at 660. But the court found no authority that would
deem the clerk’s office to be inaccessible to an individual filer who was
unable to timely file for reasons that were unique to that individual filer.
Id.; see also In re Bicoastal Corp., 136 B.R. 288, 289 (Bankr. M.D. Fla.
1990) (finding inclement weather in another part of the country that
caused a delay in the delivery of documents did not render the clerk’s
office, which was open, inaccessible). The bankruptcy court analogized
problems that are unique to a user to a situation where a person gets
stuck in traffic on the way to filing a document with the court. In re
Sizemore, 341 B.R. at 660.
In the context of electronic filing, user problems, such as entering
an incorrect password, a Wi-Fi outage, or problems with the user’s
device, are analogous to traffic jams or car problems that occur on the
way to an open courthouse; they do not render the system inaccessible
or otherwise unavailable to the general public. Although traffic jams and
Wi-Fi outages involve different complications, the underlying principle
is the same: inaccessibility does not encompass problems that are
unique to an individual. Id. Similarly, for purposes of section 7451, a
DAWSON outage that affects the public’s ability to file petitions renders
DAWSON inaccessible or otherwise unavailable to the general public,
whereas problems that an individual filer experiences while DAWSON
is operational do not.
The difficulties Mr. Sanders experienced confirm that DAWSON
was accessible and available to the general public. His inability to fill
out PDF forms on his phone is irrelevant because the forms are
completed separately and are not part of DAWSON’s filing portal. See
United States Tax Court, How to e-File a Petition, https://
ustaxcourt.gov/resources/dawson/how_to_efile_a_petition.pdf (last
visited Apr. 19, 2023). And although a taxpayer must complete multiple
9
9 These instructions state: “Before You Electronically File a Petition[:] There
are two documents that must be completed and submitted when you create a case with
12
steps to file a petition, these are realities of filing whether filing
electronically, by mail, or in person. See also In re Beal, 616 B.R. at 154
n.74, 155 (finding that inaccessibility does not include “a lack of
familiarity with [the electronic filing system] that causes a filer to make
missteps in the filing process or simply to progress through it more
slowly than anticipated”); In re Sands, 328 B.R. at 619. 10 Finally, Mr.
Sanders’s failed login at 11:56 p.m., which occurred between successful
logins, does not show a problem with DAWSON. It shows a failed
attempt by the user to log into an operational system.
The Court’s own records show the system was operational at all
relevant times. The Court’s website allows users to view DAWSON’s
system status. See United States Tax Court, https://
status.ustaxcourt.gov/. The system recorded no downtime on December
12, 2022. See id. And DAWSON logs show that Mr. Sanders logged in
multiple times in the final hour of the day. The logs also show that his
failed login at 11:56:15 p.m. was followed by successful logins by another
Windows user within one second of his failed attempt and by Mr.
Sanders himself within one minute of his failed attempt. These
successful logins show that DAWSON was working properly.
In sum, section 7451 does not apply to this case. DAWSON was
operational at all relevant times. To the extent that Mr. Sanders
experienced difficulties in filing his Petition, they were unique to him
and not the result of the system’s being inaccessible or otherwise
unavailable to the general public.
Mr. Sanders’s case exemplifies the risk in last-minute electronic
filing. Filing close to the deadline leaves “little margin for error.” Beal,
633 B.R. at 410. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
has noted:
Courts used to say that a single day’s delay can cost
a litigant valuable rights. . . . With e-filing, one hour’s or
even a minute’s delay can cost a litigant valuable rights. A
the US Tax Court. These can be prepared in advance, before you start the process of
creating a new case in DAWSON.”
10 In In re Sands, 328 B.R. at 616, 619, the court found no evidence that a
technical problem in the clerk’s office caused an untimely filing, despite the attorney’s
assertions that the electronic filing system was operating at an “excruciatingly slow”
pace. The court noted that “[p]roblems occurring in counsel’s office, such as a poor
Internet connection or a hardware problem, will not excuse . . . untimely filing.” Id.
at 619.
13
prudent litigant or lawyer must allow time for difficulties
on the filer’s end. A crash of the lawyer’s computer, or a
power outage at 11:50 PM, does not extend the deadline,
even though unavailability of the court’s computer can do
so . . . .
Justice, 682 F.3d at 665.
C. Equitable Tolling Does Not Apply.
We are unable to apply the doctrine of equitable tolling to the
deadline to file a petition in a deficiency case. The deadline to file a
petition in a deficiency case is jurisdictional. I.R.C. § 6213(a); Hallmark
Rsch. Collective, 159 T.C., slip op. at 42. Equitable tolling has the effect
of extending a limitations period set by Congress when a litigant has
diligently pursued his rights “but some extraordinary circumstance”
nevertheless prevents him from meeting a deadline. Lozano v. Montoya
Alvarez, 572 U.S. 1, 10 (2014). But if a federal court’s subject-matter
jurisdiction depends on a timely pleading, the filing deadline cannot be
equitably tolled. United States v. Wong, 575 U.S. 402, 408–09 (2015);
Hallmark Rsch. Collective, 159 T.C., slip op. at 7. Where Congress
“clearly states” that a deadline is jurisdictional, we must enforce it
regardless of equitable considerations. Wong, 575 U.S. at 409; Arbaugh
v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 515–16 (2006); Hallmark Rsch. Collective,
159 T.C., slip op. at 8. As we held in Hallmark Research Collective, 159
T.C., slip op. at 42:
Section 6213(a) clearly states that its 90-day
deadline is jurisdictional, as indicated by its text, context,
and uniform treatment during its long history. Congress
has limited the Tax Court’s deficiency jurisdiction to only
those cases in which a petition is timely filed, and we do
not have authority to extend the deadline in section 6213(a)
by equitable tolling.
Indeed, Congress reinforced the notion that section 6213(a) is
jurisdictional in 2021 when it enacted section 7451(b), which extends the
deadline for filing a petition when a filing location is inaccessible or
otherwise unavailable to the general public. When adding this provision,
Congress clearly viewed the timely filing of a petition as a prerequisite
to the Court’s jurisdiction, stating in the effective date provision: “The
amendments made by this section shall apply to petitions required to be
timely filed (determined without regard to the amendments made by
14
this section) after the date of enactment of this Act.” Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act § 80503(c) (emphasis added). Notably,
Congress made this provision applicable only to petitions, and not to
documents that lack the jurisdictional significance of petitions.
Because the filing deadline is jurisdictional, we cannot apply
equitable tolling.
III. Conclusion
Mr. Sanders did not file his Petition within the time prescribed
by section 6213(a). Although section 7451 may extend the period for
filing a petition if a filing location is inaccessible or otherwise
unavailable to the general public, problems unique to a user do not
constitute inaccessibility or unavailability. And equitable tolling cannot
apply to an untimely petition in a deficiency case. Because DAWSON
was accessible on December 12, 2022, section 7451 is inapplicable. Mr.
Sanders’s Petition was untimely, and we must dismiss this case for lack
of jurisdiction.
An order of dismissal for lack of jurisdiction will be entered.