This will be a very brief post. Today, subsequent to my post on the NTA Report calling for certain legislative fixes, the Ninth Circuit held, in a published opinion in Duggan v. Commissioner, that the 30-day period in section 6330(d) to file a Tax Court Collection Due Process petition is jurisdictional and not subject to equitable tolling under the Supreme Court’s post-2004 case law that generally excludes filing deadlines from jurisdictional status. The Ninth Circuit relied on an exception to the current Supreme Court rule that applies where Congress clearly states that the time period is jurisdictional, although the court admits that language Keith and I suggested in our amicus brief in the case might be clearer. The Ninth Circuit noted that the jurisdictional grant for the Tax Court suit was in the same sentence that set out the filing deadline. We have blogged before on Duggan here. In essence, the Ninth Circuit in Duggan adopts the position that the Tax Court adopted in Guralnik v. Commissioner, 146 T.C. 230 (2016) (where Keith and I filed an amicus brief making the same arguments that were rejected in Duggan).
Mr. Duggan was one of at least eight taxpayers over the last two years who have been misled into filing his or her Tax Court Collection Due Process petition one day late because of confusing language in the current notice of determination – a notice that does not show the last date to file.
The Duggan opinion is not the first court of appeals opinion to hold that Collection Due Process petition filing period jurisdictional. However, it is the first such court of appeals opinion that has considered the interaction of the Supreme Court’s current rules on the usual nonjurisdictional nature of most filing periods with the statutory language in section 6330(d)(1).
As I noted in my post on the NTA report from earlier today, Keith and I are imminently awaiting an opinion from the Fourth Circuit in Cunningham v. Commissioner, 4th Cir. Docket No. 17-1433 (oral argument held on Dec. 5, 2017; the Harvard Federal Tax Clinic is counsel for the taxpayer). Cunningham is on all fours with the facts and legal arguments presented in Duggan. She also argues that she was misled by the IRS through confusing language in the Collection Due Process notice of determination into mailing her Tax Court petitions to the court a day late. Like Duggan, she seeks equitable tolling to make her filing timely.
About Carlton Smith
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