Tax Court in Reviewed Opinion Holds TEFRA Litigation Time Limits Jurisdictional (10/25/25)

I am late to post on North Wall Holdings, LLC v. Commissioner, 165 T.C. ___, No. 9 (10/21/25) (reviewed opinion, T.C. Case No. 27773-21, here, at # 50 and  GS here). North Wall is the latest on the tax saga starting with Boechler, P.C. v. Commissioner, 596 U.S. 199 (2022), holding that the time limit for instituting CDP Tax Court proceedings is not jurisdictional, meaning that equitable tolling for late filing may apply. In recent Supreme Court jurisprudence, many time limits have been held to be not jurisdictional. The key tax exception is United States v. Brockamp, 519 U.S. 347 (1997), holding that the refund time limits are jurisdictional.

Notwithstanding the general trend, the Tax Court has held § 6213(a)'s time limits for petitions for redeterminations of deficiencies are jurisdictional. Hallmark Research Collective v. Commissioner, 159 T.C. 126 (2022) (unanimous reviewed opinion). Three Courts of Appeals have now held the § 6213(a) time limits are not jurisdictional, thus permitting equitable tolling. See 6th Circuit Joins 2nd and 3rd Circuits in Holding § 6213(a)’s 90--day Petition-Filing Deadline is Not Jurisdictional (8/25/25; 9/8/25), here.

In North Wall, the opinion for the Court finds the TEFRA time limits jurisdictional. The opinion’s detailed discussion of the TEFRA interrelated time frames is quite excellent. I highly recommend. For purposes of this blog entry, the headnotes are sufficient:

          R mailed a Notice of Final Partnership Administrative Adjustment (FPAA) to the tax matters partner (TMP) of PS, a limited liability company treated as a partnership for federal income tax purposes and subject to the TEFRA unified audit and litigation procedures. P, a notice partner, filed a Petition for readjustment of partnership items 168 days after R mailed the FPAA to the TMP. R moved to dismiss P’s Petition for lack of jurisdiction. P objects.

          A TMP may file a petition for readjustment within 90 days of R’s mailing of an FPAA to the TMP. I.R.C. § 6226(a). A partner or group of partners entitled to notice may file a petition within 60 days after the close of the 90- day TMP petition period. I.R.C. § 6226(b)(1); see also I.R.C. § 6231(a)(8) (defining “notice partner”), (11) (defining “5-percent group”).

          The text, context, and relevant historical treatment of the TEFRA petition period establish that the period within which to file a petition is a jurisdictional limit. The text places the petition period within the jurisdictional grant. I.R.C. § 6226(b)(1), (f). In the context of the broader TEFRA provisions, allowing equitable tolling would render [*2] the TEFRA statutory scheme unworkable. Historically, courts have treated the TEFRA petition deadlines as jurisdictional, and Congress has amended TEFRA to specifically account for the effect of the petition deadlines’ being jurisdictional.

          Even setting aside the jurisdictional question, the complex TEFRA statutory scheme indicates that Congress did not intend for the equitable tolling doctrine to apply to untimely TEFRA petitions.

          Held: P’s Petition was untimely.

          Held, further, equitable tolling does not apply to hold open the prescribed periods set forth in I.R.C. § 6226(a) or (b) for filing a TEFRA petition.

The question is whether TEFRA time limits are more like the CDP time limit involved in Boechler (equitable tolling allowed) or the refund time limits in Brockamp.(strict compliance required). The opinion for the Court makes a good case that the TEFRA time limits are more like Brockamp.

Of course, TEFRA has been replaced by the BBA Centralized Partnership Audit Regime (“CPAR”). The BBA CPAR has far fewer moving parts than TEFRA for litigation and looks more like § 6213 . See § 6234, here. So I am not sure whether North Wall has that much continuing importance.

The big issue now is the § 6213(a) time limits for deficiency jurisdiction. The Tax Court is sticking with its jurisdictional holding, even though three Circuits have rejected the holding. The Supreme Court denied the Government’s petition for certiorari in one of the cases, Culp v. Commissioner,  75 F.4th 196 (3rd Cir. 2023), cert. den. ___ U.S. ___, ___ S.Ct. ___, 2024 U.S. LEXIS 2725 (2024). My guess is that other courts of appeals in the future will be unlikely to hold § 6213(a) time limits jurisdictional. If that is right, I make the same guess for the BBA CPAR time limit.