If the envelope holds both kinds of postmarks, only the USPS postmark counts for meeting the postmark requirement.The IRS considers postmarks by private postage meters or their modern equivalents such as postage labels to be non-official postmarks.As Texas Tech University School of Law’s Bryan Camp dissected the situation, several issues were at play: What happened? IRS statutory mailbox rule §7502 and related regulations are in effect. Postal Service had added two additional postmarks: one the day after the deadline and another 14 days later.Įven though the original postage label was marked with the deadline date, the petition was thrown out. The problem in doing this, however, is that by the time the petition reached the tax court, it was 20 days late, and the U.S. On the day her petition was due, she placed it in an envelope and printed an postage label from the internet in place of a stamp. The IRS warns that the court will not consider a case if the petition is late.
In this case, the woman received a Notice of Deficiency (NOD) from the IRS and was given the right to challenge it with a petition filed by the deadline shown on the notice. That’s what one taxpayer recently learned when her correspondence was regarded as being late despite the timely date her private postage label clearly displayed. While printing postage from the internet is convenient, it may not be a good idea to do so for payments or petitions mailed to the IRS.