Don't Use the Pony Express

Prior to 1954 and the passage of Code Sec. 7502, the IRS considered documents and payments to be “timely filed” if they were physically handed over to the IRS or put in the mailbox by the deadline. In 1954, Congress clarified that a tax document is timely filed if it is:

  • Deposited in the U.S mail in a properly addressed envelope with adequate postage

  • Postmarked on or before the prescribed filing date

  • Actually delivered by U.S. mail

The assumption for this “mailbox rule” was that the Postal Service was as reliable as the Pony Express and hundreds of tax related cases ended up in court when the documents never arrived on the IRS doorstep. So in 2011, the IRS released new regulations on timely delivery. Under these regulations, a document must be postmarked by the U.S. Postal Service on or before the last date prescribed for filing, and the document must actually be delivered to the IRS (Regs. Secs. 301.7502-1). This means that you as the taxpayer must trust USPS to actually deliver the documents and it is not enough to just put them in the mail.

One exception to the actual-delivery requirement was created by the IRS, which applies when the taxpayer sends the document by certified mail. That little white receipt for certified mail stands as proof that the document was properly certified and constitutes prima facie evidence that the document was delivered.

Over the last 10 years, late filing cases continue to make it to courts and the courts have consistently rejected documents that never arrived at the IRS and were not sent via certified mail. This issue will become even more relevant as the IRS struggles to process mail during the pandemic.

So BEST PRACTICE - send all mail (including payments) to the IRS via certified mail and the receipt should be kept with a copy of the documents sent. This is the only way to establish that the documents and payments were timely mailed if they get lost or delayed at the IRS offices. Gone are the days when you could trust guaranteed delivery by the Pony Express.

Jeff Gullickson