Taxable Talk

When you were a child you learned that a minute has 60 seconds, an hour has 60 minutes, a day has 24 hours, a month has 28 to 31 days, and that there are 12 months in a year.  Believe it or not, a client of ours is still dealing with an issue related to the IRS thinking his return was mailed in the 15th month of the year.

I wrote about this case (in brief) last year.  Here’s what I wrote about his issue last year:

Client #3 received a notice alleging his return was untimely filed. His return was required to be mailed; he was outside the United States and sent it with tracking from New Zealand (timely). It wasn’t received timely (but that’s the fault of the Postal Service, not my client) and doesn’t impact him; there’s a rule in tax called the Postmark Rule which governs this situation. My client has now received a letter from IRS Collections even though we disputed the entire issue months ago.

What I didn’t say is that his receipt from the New Zealand postal service shows his return was mailed on November 15th (but shown on the receipt as 15/11/2022; most of the world puts the day before the month on receipts).  My client had requested (and was granted) a second extension until December 15, 2022 to mail his return.  It didn’t get to Austin, Texas until 2023, but there’s a rule covering that: the Postmark rule.  When you mail something using the US postal service using certified (or registered) mail, that postmark is considered the date of filing.  That’s law; it’s Internal Revenue Code § 7502(a)(1).

But my client’s return was mailed from New Zealand.  Well, he’s covered, too; there’s a regulation covering this situation.  It’s 26 CFR § 301.7502-1 (c)(B)(1), which reads:

In general. If the postmark on the envelope is made other than by the U.S. Postal Service—

(i) The postmark so made must bear a legible date on or before the last date, or the last day of the period, prescribed for filing the document or making the payment….

The IRS is alleging my client mailed this in 2023; however, we have a picture of the envelope and the receipt (both show mailing on November 15, 2022).

We attempted to get the penalty for late filing reversed at the notice stage, but the IRS refused.  We filed an appeal in July 2024.  Appeals just wrote back (sent to us in late January 2025) telling us that the IRS did not follow its internal procedures in sending the case to Appeals; it’s been sent back by Appeals to the IRS to rectify the errors.

Meanwhile, my client remains in limbo.  Eventually, someone at the IRS will realize that we’re no longer in 46 B.C. (a year with 15 months!), and the Julian calendar introduced then has exactly twelve months (and we’ve used 12 months since then).

In 45 B.C. Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar.  But apparently there had been too many omitted leap months in the past, so 46 B.C. had 15 months (and 445 days).