Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1472_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

10 

BOECHLER v. COMMISSIONER 

Opinion of the Court 

makes this case less like Brockamp and more like Holland 
v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631 (2010), in which we applied equi-
table tolling to a deadline with a single statutory exception. 
See id., at 647–648.  And it bears emphasis that Brockamp
does not control simply because it also dealt with a statute
relating to tax collection.  In this case, any concerns about 
the  administrability  of  applying  equitable  tolling  to 
§6330(d)(1)  pale  in  comparison  to  those  at  issue  in 
Brockamp, which dealt with a central provision of tax law.
The deadline here serves a far more limited and ancillary 
role  in  the  tax  collection  system.  If  anything,  the  differ-
ences  between  the  statute  at  issue  in  Brockamp  and  this 
one underscore the reasons why equitable tolling applies to 
§6330(d)(1).

The  Commissioner  protests  that  if  equitable  tolling  is
available,  the  IRS  will  not  know  whether  it  can  proceed 
with a collection action after §6330(d)(1)’s deadline passes.
The  Commissioner  acknowledges  that  the  deadline  is  al-
ready  subject  to  tolling  provisions  found  elsewhere  in  the
Tax Code—for example, tolling is available to taxpayers lo-
cated  in  a  combat  zone  or  disaster  area.  Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.
37–40.  But he says that the IRS can easily account for these
contingencies  because  it  continuously  monitors  whether 
any  taxpayer  is  in  a  combat  zone  or  disaster  area.  Ibid. 
Tolling  the  §6330(d)(1)  deadline  outside  these  circum-
stances, the Commissioner insists, would create much more 
uncertainty.  Id., at 37–38. 

We are not convinced that the possibility of equitable toll-
ing for the relatively small number of petitions at issue in
this  case  will  appreciably  add  to  the  uncertainty  already 
present in the process.  To take the most obvious example, 
petitions for review are considered filed when mailed.  26 
U. S. C. §7502(a)(1).  The 30-day deadline thus may come
and  go  before  a  petition  “filed”  within  that  time  comes  to
the IRS’s attention.  Presumably, the IRS does not monitor
when petitions for review are mailed.  So it is not as if the