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private postage meter to place the correct amount of postage on
the envelope. The postage meter had been advanced to reflect
Monday, May 24, 1999, mailings. Thus, the date on the envelope
reads May 24, 1999.
The petition was filed in this Court on June 7, 1999, 104
days after the notice of deficiency was mailed to petitioner.
The manager of distribution operations tour 3 of the U.S.
Postal Service in Mobile, Alabama, testified that the standard
delivery time for a first-class envelope mailed from the St.
Joseph's branch of the post office in Mobile, Alabama, to the Tax
Court in Washington, D.C., is 3 days. He also testified that if
a letter is misplaced, missent, or inadvertently lost or damaged,
then there should be some sort of marking on it "to let you know
exactly what has happened to that letter". There are no such
markings on the envelope that contained the petition in this
case.
This Court's jurisdiction to redetermine a deficiency
depends upon the issuance of a valid notice of deficiency and a
timely filed petition. Rule 13(a), (c); Monge v. Commissioner,
93 T.C. 22, 27 (1989). Pursuant to section 6213(a), the taxpayer
has 90 days (or 150 days if the notice is addressed to a person
outside of the United States) from the date that the notice of
deficiency is mailed to file a petition with the Court for a
redetermination of the deficiency. If the petition is not filed
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