Tax Court: 1 + 2 = 4

In Burke v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2007-200 (11/26/07), the IRS sent a notice of deficiency to the taxpayer on March 22, 2007.  The notice included a statement that the last day to file a petition with the Tax Court was June 20, 2007 (90 days later).  Because the taxpayer mailed his petition to the Tax Court on June 21, the IRS moved to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction due to the untimely petition.  But the taxpayer succeeded in convincing the Tax Court that the date of the notice of deficiency was March 24, not March 22:

At the hearing on respondent’s motion, petitioner produced the original notice of deficiency, and the Court examined it. The date of the notice is reasonably legible and it certainly looks like March 24, 2007. However, in using a magnifying glass and a high-powered halogen light to examine the date, it appears that respondent originally stamped the notice March 21, 2007, and then restamped it March 22, 2007. This interpretation is consistent with the Declaration of respondent’s employee who was responsible for the mailing of the notice.

The stamp-over of the date on the notice of deficiency had no effect on the legibility of either the month or the year or the first digit of the day. However, the stamp-over of the “1” and the “2” of the second digit of the day ended up producing what clearly looks like a “4” to the unaided eye. ...

In the instant case, we do not agree with respondent that the date stamped on the notice of deficiency presents a “patent ambiguity” such that petitioner was not entitled to rely on his reading of that date. Rather, we think that petitioner’s reading was eminently reasonable. Indeed, as previously stated, the date stamped on the notice appears to the unaided eye to be March 24, 2007, and it is only upon close examination, using a magnifying glass and a powerful beam of light, that ambiguity arises.