Vernon L. Correia Charlotte M. Correia v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Taxpayers Vernon L. Correia and Charlotte M. Correia timely appeal the Tax Court’s dismissal of their petition for rede-termination of deficiency. The Tax Court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction. We review de novo, Billingsley v. Commissioner, 868 F.2d 1081, 1084 (9th Cir.1989), and affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue issued a statutory notice of deficiency to Taxpayers on April 9, 1998. See 26 U.S.C. § 6211 . Pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 6213 (a), Taxpayers had 90 days — until July 8, 1993— to file their petition for redetermination. On July 8 Taxpayers delivered their petition to Federal Express for delivery to the Tax Court. The petition was not delivered to the Tax Court until July 9. The Tax Court dismissed the petition as untimely.

II. DISCUSSION

The timely filing of a petition for redetermination is a jurisdictional requirement. Shipley v. Commissioner, 572 F.2d 212, 213 (9th Cir.1977). It is undisputed that Taxpayers’ petition was not timely received by the Tax Court. However, Taxpayers contend that their otherwise untimely petition is saved by the timely-mailing-as-timely-filing provision of 26 U.S.C. § 7502 . Under § 7502, for a…