The Court of Federal Claims wrongly dismissed a couple’s tax refund claim after deferring to IRS regulations on what constitutes an on-time filing, and the Federal Circuit should reverse the ruling, the court was told.
Regulations governing how the Internal Revenue Service determines whether a tax refund claim was filed in a timely fashion should not have barred tax refunds claimed by Mohamad E. Taha, who died in 2007, and his wife, Sanaa M. Yassin, according to a brief filed Monday. The brief was filed on behalf of the couple by Ali Taha, Mohamad Tana’s brother. The rules contradicted congressional intent by superseding the so-called common-law mailbox rule, which says the date a document is placed in the mail should govern whether it was filed on time, the brief said.