16‐3034

Matuszak v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

______________              

August Term 2016

(Argued: April 20, 2017     Decided: July 5, 2017)

Docket No. 16–3034

           

LINDA JEAN MATUSZAK,

Petitioner‐Appellant,

–v.–  

COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE,

Respondent‐Appellee.

______________

Before: CALABRESI, WESLEY, and LOHIER, Circuit Judges.
Petitioner‐appellant Linda Jean Matuszak appeals

from a December 29, 2015 order of the United States Tax

Court (Marvel, C.J.) dismissing her untimely petition for

innocent spouse relief for lack of jurisdiction, and from a

July 29, 2016 order of the same court denying Matuszak’s

motion to vacate the order of dismissal. Matuszak concedes

her petition was filed after the ninety‐day period specified

in I.R.C. § 6015(e)(1)(A), but argues the deadline may be

tolled for equitable reasons. We conclude the statutory

period is jurisdictional and AFFIRM.  

______________

JEFFREY ZINK, Federal Tax Clinic, Harvard Law

School, Jamaica Plain, MA (T. Keith Fogg,

Federal Tax Clinic, Harvard Law School,

Jamaica Plain, MA; Carlton M. Smith, New

York, NY, on the brief), for Petitioner‐Appellant.

RICHARD CALDARONE, Attorney, Tax Division (Diana

L. Erbsen, Deputy Assistant Attorney General,

Gilbert S. Rothenberg, Francesca Ugolini,

Attorneys, Tax Division, on the brief), for

Caroline D. Ciraolo, Principal Deputy Assistant

Attorney General, Washington, D.C., for

Respondent‐Appellee.

______________

PER CURIAM:

The Internal Revenue Code generally holds spouses

jointly and severally liable for the entire tax due on a joint

return. See I.R.C. § 6013(d)(3). Section 6015 creates several
3

exceptions to that rule. It relieves a spouse of joint and

several liability in certain circumstances in which the other

spouse fails to report income or reports it improperly, the

couple is legally separated or no longer living together, or it

would be inequitable to hold the spouse liable for the

amount due. See I.R.C. § 6015(b)(1), (c), (f). If the Internal

Revenue Service (the “IRS”) denies a request for relief

under § 6015, also known as “innocent spouse relief,” the

spouse has ninety days from the date of the IRS’s final

determination to petition the United States Tax Court for

review. See id. § 6015(e)(1)(A).

This appeal arises from the dismissal of a petition for

innocent spouse relief based on petitioner‐appellant Linda

Jean Matuszak’s failure to comply with the ninety‐day

deadline in § 6015(e)(1)(A). The issue is whether Matuszak’s

failure to file the petition within the statutorily prescribed

period deprives the Tax Court of jurisdiction to review her

claim. We conclude that it does and affirm the dismissal of

Matuszak’s untimely petition for lack of jurisdiction.  

I.

Matuszak and her husband filed joint income tax

returns in 2007 and 2008. In 2012, Matuszak’s husband

pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and filing a materially

false income tax return, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341,

1342 and I.R.C. § 7206(1), for engaging in a scheme to

defraud his employer of more than $1 million and failing to

report the stolen money as income. As part of the plea

agreement, Matuszak’s husband agreed to “file legal and
4

accurate amended income tax returns . . . for calendar years

2007 and 2008,” J.A. 72, which resulted in income tax

deficiencies of approximately $333,964 for 2007 and

$105,055 for 2008, see id. at 83. The Matuszaks stipulated to

the deficiencies, and the IRS assessed them the amounts

due.  

In March 2014, Matuszak requested innocent spouse

relief for both taxable years. The IRS granted her request for

the 2008 deficiency, but denied relief for the 2007 deficiency

in a final notice of determination dated October 7, 2014.

Ninety‐one days later, on January 6, 2015, Matuszak mailed

a petition to the Tax Court seeking review of that decision.

The IRS moved to dismiss Matuszak’s petition for

lack of jurisdiction based on her failure to comply with the

ninety‐day deadline in § 6015(e)(1)(A). That section details

how—and, crucially, when—a spouse may petition the Tax

Court for review of the IRS’s denial of innocent spouse

relief:

In addition to any other remedy provided by

law, the individual may petition the Tax Court

(and the Tax Court shall have jurisdiction) to

determine the appropriate relief available to

the individual under this section if such

petition is filed . . . not later than the close of

the 90th day after the date [the IRS issues its

final notice of determination, or six months

after the date the request was made].

I.R.C. § 6015(e)(1)(A).  
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The IRS asserted that ninety days after the October 7

notice of determination was January 5, not January 6.

Therefore, even if the Tax Court treated Matuszak’s petition

as if it had been filed on the date it was mailed, see I.R.C.

§ 7502(a), the IRS argued the petition was one day late and

beyond the court’s jurisdiction to review. In response,

Matuszak conceded she did not file the petition by January

5 but urged the court to deem it timely for equitable

reasons. Specifically, she alleged that two IRS agents

informed her she had until “the end of business on January

7” to petition the Tax Court for review.  J.A. 19.  

The Tax Court (Marvel, C.J.) granted the IRS’s motion

and dismissed Matuszak’s petition for lack of jurisdiction.

The court held that its jurisdiction under § 6015(e)

“depends, in part, on the timely filing of a petition.” Id. at

22. Matuszak did not timely file her petition, the court

determined, because she did not mail it within ninety days

of the IRS’s determination. Relying on settled Tax Court

precedent, the court declined to extend the statutory period

for equitable reasons, noting that even “erroneous legal

advice cannot eliminate, by estoppel or otherwise, the

jurisdictional requirement for a timely filed petition.” Id. at

23 (citing Elgart v. Comm’r, T.C. Memo. 1996–379, 72 T.C.M.

(CCH) 398, at *4 (Aug. 15, 1996)). The Tax Court denied

Matuszak’s motion to vacate the order of dismissal, and this

appeal followed.  
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II.1

Is the ninety‐day deadline in § 6015(e)(1)(A) a

jurisdictional limit on the Tax Court’s authority to review a

petition for innocent spouse relief? The answer to that

question is more than semantic. See Henderson ex rel.

Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 434 (2011). “Branding a

rule as going to a court’s subject‐matter jurisdiction alters

the normal operation of our adversarial system,” id., and

“deprives a court of all authority to hear a case” when a

litigant fails to comply, United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 135

S. Ct. 1625, 1631 (2015).

Given the “drastic consequences” of labeling a

procedural rule as jurisdictional, the Supreme Court “has

endeavored in recent years to bring some discipline to the

use of [that] term.” Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 141

(2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, the

Court has “pressed a stricter distinction between truly

jurisdictional rules, which govern ‘a court’s adjudicatory

authority,’ and non‐jurisdictional ‘claim processing rules,’

which do not.” Id. (quoting Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443,

454–55 (2004)); see also Hoogerheide v. I.R.S., 637 F.3d 634, 638

(6th Cir. 2011) (describing a non‐jurisdictional rule as one

that “goes to a plaintiff’s right to relief, not to his [or her]

right to enter the federal courts”).  

 

1 We have jurisdiction to review the Tax Court’s decision, see

I.R.C. § 7482(a)(1), and that review is de novo, see Maier v. Comm’r,

360 F.3d 361, 363 (2d Cir. 2004).
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Statutes of limitation and other filing deadlines

typically fall into the latter category. Although they may

use mandatory, even emphatic, terms, they often “seek to

promote the orderly progress of litigation, . . . not deprive a

court of authority to hear a case.” Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632

(internal quotation marks omitted); see also Musacchio v.

United States, 136 S. Ct. 709, 717 (2016) (the statute of

limitations for federal crimes in 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a) “does

not expressly refer to subject‐matter jurisdiction or speak in

jurisdictional terms”); Sebelius v. Auburn Reg’l Med. Ctr., 568

U.S. 145, 154 (2013) (the time period to appeal to a review

board under 42 U.S.C. § 1395oo(a)(3) contains no “words

with jurisdictional import”); Henderson, 562 U.S. at 438 (the

deadline to file a notice of appeal with the Veterans Court

under 38 U.S.C. § 7266(a) “does not speak in jurisdictional

terms or refer in any way to the jurisdiction of the Veterans

Court” (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)).

Nevertheless, “Congress is free to attach the

conditions that go with the jurisdictional label to a rule that

we would prefer to call a claim‐processing rule.” Henderson,

562 U.S. at 435. When Congress “clearly states” that a

statutory limit is jurisdictional, we must treat it that way,

Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 515 (2006)—“even if

equitable considerations would support extending the

prescribed time period,” Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1631.  

The ninety‐day deadline at issue here is one of the

“rare” statutory periods that speak in clear jurisdictional

terms. See Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632. Section 6015(e)(1)(A)

provides that “the Tax Court shall have jurisdiction . . . to

determine the appropriate relief available to [an] individual
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under this section if [the] petition is filed . . . not later than”

the earlier of ninety days after the date the IRS mails its

final notice of determination, or six months after the request

was made. I.R.C. § 6015(e)(1)(A) (emphases added). Not

only did Congress place the grant of jurisdiction and the

time limitation in the same sentence and subsection, it

expressly conditioned the Tax Court’s jurisdiction on the

timely filing of a petition: “the Tax Court shall have

jurisdiction . . . if [the] petition is filed” within the specified

period. Id. (emphasis added).2  

Statutory context confirms that reading. The

subsection immediately following § 6015(e)(1)(A) states that

the IRS may not undertake collection of the spouse’s tax

liability as it relates to the request for innocent spouse relief

until the ninety‐day period for petitioning the Tax Court

expires, or, if the spouse files a petition, until the Tax

 

2 Our sister circuits and the Tax Court have construed a

similarly‐worded deadline to petition the Tax Court in a

collection due process hearing as jurisdictional. See I.R.C.

§ 6330(d)(1). Section 6330(d)(1) provides that a person who

receives a determination from the IRS following a collection due

process hearing “may, within 30 days of [the] determination . . .

petition the Tax Court for review of such determination (and the

Tax Court shall have jurisdiction with respect to such matter).”

Like the ninety‐day deadline in § 6015(e)(1)(A), the thirty‐day

deadline in § 6330(d)(1) is “set forth in the same sentence of the

statute” and is “explicitly linked” to the Tax Court’s jurisdiction.

Guralnik v. Comm’r, 146 T.C. 230, 237 (2016); accord Hauptman v.

Comm’r, 831 F.3d 950, 953 (8th Cir. 2016); Gray v. Comm’r, 723

F.3d 790, 793 (7th Cir. 2013).
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Court’s decision becomes final. See I.R.C. § 6015(e)(1)(B)(i).

It further states that “[t]he Tax Court shall have no

jurisdiction . . . to enjoin any action or proceeding unless a

timely petition has been filed under subparagraph (A).” Id.

§ 6015(e)(1)(B)(ii) (emphasis added). Read alongside

§ 6015(e)(1)(B), the ninety‐day deadline in § 6015(e)(1)(A)

represents “[t]he most obvious example” of a jurisdictional

rule, because Congress clearly and repeatedly expressed

that it imposes a jurisdictional limit on the Tax Court’s

authority. See Miller v. FDIC, 738 F.3d 836, 844 (7th Cir.

2013) (citing Arbaugh, 546 U.S. at 515).3

Moreover, we have construed another statutory

requirement in the same subsection of § 6015 as

jurisdictional. The prefatory language to § 6015(e)(1) reads:

“In the case of an individual . . . who elects to have

[innocent spouse provisions] apply, . . . the individual may

 

3 The Seventh Circuit recently concluded that a similar clause in

I.R.C. § 6213(a) renders the ninety‐day deadline to petition the

Tax Court in a deficiency case jurisdictional. See Tilden v. Comm’r,

846 F.3d 882, 886–87 (7th Cir. 2017). Like § 6015(e)(1)(B),

§ 6213(a) states that “[t]he Tax Court shall have no jurisdiction to

enjoin any action or proceeding or order any refund under this

subsection unless a timely petition for a redetermination of the

deficiency has been filed.” I.R.C. § 6213(a). According to the

Seventh Circuit, that clause alone contains “the magic word[s]”

that deprive the Tax Court of jurisdiction over untimely

petitions. Tilden, 846 F.3d at 886.    The ninety‐day deadline at

issue here speaks in equally clear jurisdictional terms, because it

is linked to the Tax Court’s jurisdiction in both § 6015(e)(1)(A)

and § 6015(e)(1)(B).   
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petition the Tax Court (and the Tax Court shall have

jurisdiction) to determine the appropriate relief available to

the individual under this section.” I.R.C. § 6015(e)(1). In

Maier, we interpreted that language to mean that the spouse

who petitions the Tax Court must be the spouse seeking

innocent spouse status, and that the Tax Court lacks

jurisdiction to review a petition by the non‐electing spouse.

See Maier, 360 F.3d at 363–64. Because the Tax Court “may

exercise jurisdiction only pursuant to specific legislative

enactments” and “nowhere in § 6015 is the Tax Court

conferred with jurisdiction . . . to hear a non‐electing

spouse’s petition,” id., we held that the statute restricts the

court’s jurisdiction to a petition by the electing spouse. See

id. at 365.

The same is true with respect to the ninety‐day filing

period in § 6015(e)(1)(A), which contains a stronger

jurisdictional link than the clause we considered in Maier.

The plain meaning of § 6015(e)(1)(A) is that the Tax Court

“shall have jurisdiction” over a petition for innocent spouse

relief only “if [the] petition is filed” within ninety days of

the IRS’s final determination or six months after the request

was made. See I.R.C. § 6015(e)(1)(A). Indeed, “we cannot

read § 6015 any other way than to preclude jurisdiction”

over a petition filed after the ninety‐day period. See Maier,

360 F.3d at 364.4 The timeliness requirement is explicitly

 

4 We are not alone in concluding that the text and context of

§ 6015(e)(1)(A) signal Congress’s intent to treat the deadline as

jurisdictional. The Tax Court has long held that the ninety‐day

period is jurisdictional. See, e.g., Pollock v. Comm’r, 132 T.C. 21,
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linked to the statute’s grant of jurisdiction; it therefore

imposes a jurisdictional limit on the Tax Court’s authority

to hear the claim.5    

III.

Because § 6015(e)(1)(A) expressly references the Tax

Court’s jurisdiction and conditions that jurisdiction on the

timely filing of a petition, the ninety‐day deadline is

jurisdictional. We therefore agree with the Tax Court that it

lacks jurisdiction to entertain Matuszak’s untimely petition

for innocent spouse relief. The orders of the Tax Court are

AFFIRMED.  

 

28–32 (2009); Gormeley v. Comm’r, T.C. Memo. 2009‐252, 98

T.C.M. (CCH) 420, at *2–3 (Nov. 9, 2009); Sykes v. Comm’r, T.C.

Memo. 2009‐197, 98 T.C.M. (CCH) 150, at *4–5 (Sept. 3, 2009).

And the Third Circuit has recently arrived at the same

conclusion. See Rubel v. Comm’r, 856 F.3d 301, 304–06 (3d Cir.

2017).   5 Although the Tax Court lacks jurisdiction to review an

untimely petition for innocent spouse relief, taxpayers who miss

the ninety‐day deadline in § 6015(e)(1)(A) may have other

means, outside the Tax Court, to seek review of the IRS’s

determination.  See Appellee’s Br. 47 (suggesting that a taxpayer

may pay the assessed deficiency and then seek review of the

IRS’s denial of innocent spouse relief in a refund suit in federal

district court or the Federal Court of Claims).    We express no

opinion on the availability of those alternative remedies in this

case.