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The petition in this case was mailed to this Court by
ordinary mail, first class, but the parcel was neither certified
nor registered. The mailing cover or envelope was properly
addressed to the Court and bears a postmark by the Postal Service
that is not legible. The envelope, however, bears two rubber-
stamped notations that state: "Found in supposedly empty
equipment." At the hearing on the motion, an employee of the
Postal Service acknowledged that the two rubber-stamped notations
were those of the Postal Service, and the message on these
notations could account for the delay in the delivery of the
petition to the Tax Court. Based on this testimony, the Court
concludes that the delay in delivery of the petition to this
Court was due to a delay in the transmission of the mail, and
that the cause of such delay was the Postal Service. In the
absence of the envelope's having been misplaced or left in the
empty equipment of the Postal Service, the Court is satisfied
that the petition would have been delivered to the Court in the
normal period of time for a parcel mailed from Tulsa, Oklahoma,
to Washington, D.C.
As noted above, in order for petitioners to rely on the
timely mailing, timely filing provisions of section 7502(a) where
the postmark is illegible, they must prove the date the postmark
was made. See Berry v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1994-224.
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Last modified: May 25, 2011