Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1472_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

8 

BOECHLER v. COMMISSIONER 

Opinion of the Court 

had held that an analogous tax provision regarding IRS de-
ficiency  determinations  is  jurisdictional.    (That  provision
says that “[w]ithin 90 days . . . the taxpayer may file a peti-
tion with the Tax Court for a redetermination of the defi-
ciency.”  26 U. S. C. §6213(a).)  According to the Commis-
sioner, Congress was aware of these lower court cases and
expected  §6330(d)(1)’s  time  limit  to  have  the  same  effect. 
So, he says, the statutory backdrop resolves any doubt that 
might linger in the text. 

The  Commissioner’s  argument  misses  the  mark.  The 
cases he cites almost all predate this Court’s effort to “bring
some discipline” to the use of the term “jurisdictional.”  Hen-
derson, 562 U. S., at 435.  And while this Court has been 
willing to treat “ ‘a long line of [Supreme] Cour[t] decisions 
left undisturbed by Congress’ ” as a clear indication that a 
requirement  is  jurisdictional,  Fort  Bend  County  v.  Davis, 
587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 6), no such “long line” 
of authority exists here. 

III 
Of course, the nonjurisdictional nature of the filing dead-
line does not help Boechler unless the deadline can be equi-
tably  tolled.  Equitable  tolling  is  a  traditional  feature  of 
American 
jurisprudence  and  a  background  principle
against which Congress drafts limitations periods.  Lozano, 
572  U. S.,  at  10–11.    Because  we  do  not  understand  Con-
gress to alter that backdrop lightly, nonjurisdictional limi-
tations periods are presumptively subject to equitable toll-
ing.  Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U. S. 89, 
95–96 (1990).* 
—————— 

*In passing, the Commissioner briefly suggests that equitable tolling 
might not apply outside the realm of Article III courts.  We have already
applied  it  in  other  non-Article  III contexts,  however,  and  the  Commis-
sioner  does  not  ask  us  to  reconsider  those  precedents.  See  Young  v. 
United States, 535 U. S. 43, 47 (2002) (bankruptcy court limitations pe-
riod); United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 575 U. S. 402,  407, 420 (2015) 
(deadline to present claim to agency).