It’s exactly 399 miles from my office to the Post Office in Fresno, California (93779).
On my way out of town on my vacation, I stopped at the Post Office to mail a response to an IRS notice. This was a request for a Collection Due Process (CDP) Hearing, and it had a deadline of July 28th. I mailed the response on July 26th (using certified mail, return receipt requested). I haven’t received the return receipt yet, but the filing was delivered on August 4th (per USPS tracking). Given all the delays in the IRS reading and responding to mail, am I concerned for my client? Definitely not. I have proof of the mailing, and the fact that something a six-hour drive took the Postal Service nine days doesn’t matter–most IRS filings are postmark deadlines. (It is possible the IRS delays in reading their mail will cause issues, but those are resolvable if I can speak to an individual at the IRS.)
But consider what might have happened if I had just put $1.40 of postage on the envelope and dropped it in the mail. What might have happened if the postmark got obliterated (or if the mail hadn’t been postmarked)? My client would lose. We spent the $3.60 for certified mail (and $2.85 for the return receipt), so my client will have a CDP hearing.
Given all the issues with the Post Office and the IRS, anything sent to the IRS by mail must be sent certified mail (and you have to maintain the proof that it was mailed and received). I’m expecting quite a few cases where the IRS claims various filings were lost–the volume of paperwork is just too large for this not to happen. Don’t be part of the problem–use certified mail. The courts have little to no sympathy if you don’t.
(Yes, there’s an issue with an envelope taking nine days to get from Las Vegas to Fresno. But that’s another story for another day.)
Tags: PostOffice