Second Circuit Reverses Itself on Time Limits in Some Tax Cases

A petition challenging a tax deficiency was timely filed, the Second Circuit said, reversing both the US Tax Court and its own 40-year-old precedent.

IRC Section 6213(a), which gives taxpayers 90 days from when the IRS mails a notice of tax deficiency to contest it, is a nonjursdictional claim-processing rule, subject to equitable tolling, Judge Richard J. Sullivan said. Recent US Supreme Court decisions offered the circuit “fresh eyes” to take another look at the Tax Code and the 1985 ruling that had come out the other way.

The IRS mailed a notice to Mark Buller and Sarah Beatty ...