Mailbox rule does not apply where taxpayer cannot prove mailing.

• Author: Nevius, Alistair M.

The First Circuit dismissed a suit for refund of Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes Maine Medical Center mistakenly paid for its medical residents in the 2001 tax year, upholding a lower court determination that Maine Medical's discovery requests were not warranted and that the information it sought from the IRS would not have proved that Maine Medical's refund claim, which the IRS said it never received, was timely (Maine Medical Center, No. 11-1426 (1st Cir. 3/30/12), aff'g 766 F. Supp. 2d 253 (D. Me. 2011)).

Maine Medical said it mailed its refund claim on April 15, 2005, and presented testimony about preparing the claim, but did not present evidence to prove that the claim was actually mailed on that date. Timely filing of a refund claim is a prerequisite to a tax refund suit. In pursuing its refund claim, Maine Medical issued discovery requests to the IRS, asking a number of questions, including requesting information about whether and how the IRS searched for its refund claim and the routine steps the IRS took to process FICA refund claims from similar institutions. The court held that the answers to these discovery requests would not establish that the claim had been timely filed.

In rejecting the request for discovery, the court noted that Maine Medical had not been diligent in preserving its rights because it had not attempted to obtain a duplicate receipt for certified mail (which could have been obtained from the post office within two years of mailing) or investigated why the IRS had not responded to its refund claim until just before it filed suit.

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The common law mailbox rule would not prove Maine...