The Tax Court wants parties to mail or electronically file their documents for the foreseeable future.
In an October 29 announcement, the Tax Court said that as of October 30, it “will be suspending its in-person acceptance of hand-delivered documents.” The court didn’t predict when it might resume accepting hand-delivered documents.
Instead, the court reminded those seeking to file documents such as petitions and notices of appeal that they can satisfy the statutory deadlines by making use of either the U.S. Postal Service or delivery services. Plus, “the eAccess and eFiling systems remain operational,” according to the announcement.
However, the electronic filing options could run into a planned outage starting November 20 as the Tax Court transitions to its new case management system.
In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the nation, the Tax Court fully closed its mailing address, an action that suspended statutory filing deadlines based on the court’s holding in Guralnik v. Commissioner, 146 T.C. 230 (2016). The IRS also exercised its authority to extend filing deadlines.
Both the Tax Court and IRS filing extensions were lifted July 15 because the court resumed receiving mail a few days earlier. The court built up a 10,000-piece mail backlog but finished sorting through it in August.