Boechler, P.C. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, No. 25-2620, (8th Cir. Aug. 10, 2026)

For tax professionals, the landmark Supreme Court decision in Boechler, P.C. v. Commissioner, 596 U.S. 199 (2022) was heralded as a major victory for taxpayer rights. In that ruling, the High Court settled a long-standing circuit split by holding that the 30-day filing deadline under Internal Revenue Code (I.R.C.) § 6330(d)(1) to petition the United States Tax Court for review of a Collection Due Process (CDP) determination is a nonjurisdictional limitations period subject to equitable tolling. However, a critical distinction exists between a deadline being subject to equitable tolling and a taxpayer actually qualifying for such relief. The likely final chapter of this litigation—culminating in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit’s decision issued on August 10, 2026—serves as a stark reminder of how incredibly narrow and rigorous the equitable tolling doctrine remains in tax practice. For CPAs and EAs, the court’s final ruling highlights the severe professional risks of relying on “excusable neglect” and underscores that procedural discipline remains absolute.

The Genesis of the Dispute: Timelines and Administrative Realities

The underlying dispute in this case began with an ordinary administrative controversy regarding information return penalties. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue assessed penalties against Boechler, P.C. (BPC), a North Dakota-based law firm, under I.R.C. § 6721 for failing to timely file required 2012 information returns. To secure payment of this outstanding tax liability, the Commissioner issued a Final Notice of Intent to Levy to BPC on October 31, 2016. In response, BPC requested an administrative appeals hearing, initiating the CDP process.

Upon completing the administrative appeals hearing, the IRS Office of Appeals mailed BPC a Notice of Determination dated July 28, 2017, sustaining the proposed levy action. The Notice of Determination clearly informed the taxpayer of its right to dispute the decision, stating that to do so, BPC “must file a petition with the United States Tax Court within a 30-day period beginning the day after the date of this letter”. Under I.R.C. § 6330(d)(1), the statutory 30-day period began on July 29, 2017. The thirtieth day was August 27, 2017, which fell on a Sunday. Consequently, the filing deadline rolled over to Monday, August 28, 2017, pursuant to I.R.C. § 7503.

The taxpayer’s petition, however, was signed by outside counsel and mailed in an envelope postmarked August 29, 2017—exactly 32 days after the date on the Notice of Determination and one day past the extended deadline. The Tax Court received and filed the petition on September 1, 2017. The sole attorney at BPC, Jeanette Boechler, had erroneously calculated August 29 or 30 as the filing deadline. On October 4, 2017, the Commissioner moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the Tax Court lacked jurisdiction because the petition was untimely filed. BPC objected, contending that the statutory deadline was nonjurisdictional and that the court should apply equitable tolling to forgive the one-day delay.

The Supreme Court Interlude and Remand for Factfinding

Initially, the Tax Court granted the Commissioner’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, holding that the 30-day filing window was jurisdictional, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that the § 6330(d)(1) deadline is a nonjurisdictional filing deadline that is “presumptively subject to equitable tolling”. The Supreme Court noted that nothing in the statutory text or scheme rebutted this presumption, particularly as § 6330 is “unusually protective of taxpayers” and often involves pro se litigants. However, rather than granting tolling itself, the Supreme Court remanded the case for the lower courts to determine whether BPC was “entitled to equitable tolling on the facts of this case”.

On remand, the Eighth Circuit sent the case back to the Tax Court specifically for factfinding on the equitable tolling issue. On June 10, 2025, the Tax Court held a trial solely focused on whether the circumstances surrounding BPC’s untimely filing justified tolling. Jeanette Boechler was the sole witness at the trial and described a highly challenging conflation of professional and personal responsibilities during the 30-day filing window.

The Taxpayer’s Request for Relief and Personal Circumstances

In seeking equitable tolling, BPC argued that Ms. Boechler’s failure to timely file was caused by “many competing obligations” that resulted in a deadline miscalculation. Ms. Boechler’s firm was a solo practitioner law firm with limited staff, consisting only of herself, her sister, and a part-time administrative assistant. At the time the petition was due, she was actively managing a heavy caseload of roughly “25 active asbestos cases often [against] 30 or more defendants”, representing plaintiff-side asbestos litigants, and working an average of 60 hours per week.

In addition to her professional obligations, Ms. Boechler faced significant personal demands. She was a single parent and one of the primary caregivers for her elderly mother, who was in her late 90s. Ms. Boechler resided in the same home as her mother and her sister, sharing caregiving duties like meal preparation, household tasks, and taking her mother to medical appointments. Furthermore, during the critical filing window, Ms. Boechler was helping her son—a recent high school graduate—prepare to leave home for the first time to attend an out-of-state college. Between August 17 and August 22, 2017, she traveled to New York to assist him with moving into his dormitory and to attend parent meetings, a transition she described as an “emotional” process. BPC contended that the combined weight of these personal and professional responsibilities led to her honest miscalculation of the filing date, which she believed was August 29 or 30.

The Court’s Analysis of the Legal Standards for Equitable Tolling

Both the Tax Court and the Eighth Circuit analyzed BPC’s request under the established, rigorous federal standard for equitable tolling. To successfully claim equitable tolling, a litigant must establish two distinct elements: “(1) that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way”. This standard, originating in Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649 (2010), and reaffirmed in Menominee Indian Tribe of Wis. v. United States, 577 U.S. 250, 255 (2016), places the burden of proof entirely upon the taxpayer.

The courts emphasized that equitable tolling is an extraordinary remedy that is “applied sparingly”, as noted by the Supreme Court in Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 96 (1990). Under the first prong, a litigant must demonstrate that they exercised “due diligence in pursuing [their] case”. While due diligence does not require “maximum feasible diligence”, it strictly demands that the litigant take “reasonable efforts” to ensure compliance. This includes taking “all reasonable steps to ensure the timeliness of its petition, including engaging with its attorney to ensure a petition is timely filed”.

Under the second prong, the taxpayer must show that the delay-causing circumstances were “both extraordinary and beyond its control”. Crucially, the doctrine is “typically reserved for circumstances that are ‘truly beyond the control of the plaintiff’”.

Application of the Law to the Facts: The Fatal Deficiencies in BPC’s Case

Upon applying the legal standards to the trial evidence, the courts found BPC’s case deficient under both prongs of the equitable tolling test.

Regarding the first prong—due diligence—the Tax Court found, and the Eighth Circuit agreed, that “the record is silent as to whether anyone diligently pursued [BPC’s] rights”. Although Ms. Boechler miscalculated the deadline, she could remember “no action she took to verify her calculation was accurate”. There was absolutely no evidence that she consulted with BPC’s hired outside counsel, her internal staff, the IRS, or anyone else to confirm the deadline would be met. Ms. Boechler testified that she could not recall if she filed the petition itself, or if she provided any direction or supervision to the individual who did. As the Eighth Circuit observed, because the petition was filed by an outside attorney, the lack of communication between the client and counsel on the deadline was damning: “the record is unusually silent as to what direction, if any, was provided by or to counsel to ensure timely filing”. Failure to establish this first prong was, on its own, legally sufficient to deny the equitable tolling claim.

Furthermore, the courts held that BPC failed to satisfy the second prong because none of the circumstances cited by the taxpayer, individually or in combination, rose to the level of “extraordinary.”

First, the courts addressed the deadline miscalculation itself. It is a well-settled principle of federal jurisprudence that an attorney’s administrative error or miscalculation is not an extraordinary circumstance. The Eighth Circuit reiterated that “‘a garden variety claim of excusable neglect,’ such as a simple ‘miscalculation’ that leads a lawyer to miss a filing deadline, does not warrant equitable tolling”. In the Eighth Circuit, an attorney’s miscalculation of a filing deadline is consistently held to be insufficient to warrant tolling.

Second, BPC’s argument that an oppressive professional workload constituted an extraordinary circumstance was flatly rejected. The Fifth Circuit has previously held that we “decline to apply equitable tolling just because a lawyer is busy”. The courts noted that Ms. Boechler was the namesake and sole attorney of BPC and “control[led] her own workload”. Additionally, she was not litigating alone, as records showed she had co-counsel on several of her pending asbestos cases during the relevant period.

Third, the courts evaluated her personal caregiver and family responsibilities. While acknowledging that caring for an elderly parent is demanding, the Tax Court found that Ms. Boechler “had other family members available to assist, and who in fact assisted, with the caregiving responsibilities”. Therefore, the situation did not “raise to the level of ‘extraordinary’ so as to warrant equitable tolling”. The court drew comparisons to prior rulings where family illness and death were insufficient to justify tolling. Similarly, while helping her son move out of state for college was an “emotional” transition, it was not an extraordinary impediment beyond her control that prevented her from filing on time.

In sum, the courts agreed that BPC’s professional and personal circumstances were “insufficient to support the conclusion that Boechler’s professional and personal circumstances were extraordinary such that they ‘stood in [the] way’ of BPC timely filing its petition for review”.

Conclusions and Practical Implications for Tax Practitioners

On June 12, 2025, Judge Buch of the Tax Court rendered his oral findings of fact and opinion, concluding that BPC established “neither” prong of the equitable tolling test and entered a decision for the Commissioner. On August 10, 2026, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the Tax Court’s decision de novo, bringing a definitive end to BPC’s quest for administrative relief.

For CPAs, EAs, and tax attorneys, the resolution of Boechler is highly instructive. It demonstrates that the Supreme Court’s recognition of equitable tolling in tax disputes is largely a theoretical safety valve, rather than a practical remedy for administrative oversights. The standard for obtaining equitable tolling remains exceptionally high.

Practitioners must implement rigid, redundant internal control systems to protect their firms and their clients from devastating procedural dismissals:

Implement Multi-Source Deadline Verification: Never rely on a single practitioner’s manual or mental calculation of statutory deadlines. Critical deadlines must be verified by a second professional or through automated, specialized tax litigation software.
Client-Attorney Communication Protocols: When outside counsel is retained to file a petition, clear, written instructions regarding who is responsible for the final calculation and filing must be established. A silent record regarding client-attorney communication, as seen in BPC’s case, is fatal to a claim of due diligence.
Diligence Documentation: In the rare event that a delay is unavoidable, practitioners must meticulously document every affirmative step taken to meet the deadline. Diligence must be demonstrated, not merely asserted.
Workload Management: Firm-wide docket reviews must ensure that no single professional is overburdened to the point of administrative failure. Under Boechler, a heavy workload is legally treated as an internal management issue within the practitioner’s control, never an extraordinary circumstance.

Ultimately, Boechler teaches us that while the doors of the Tax Court may technically be held open by the doctrine of equitable tolling, the courts will not hesitate to slam them shut on any practitioner who fails to exhibit flawless procedural discipline.

Prepared with assistance from Gemini Notebook.