March 4, 2015
Re: § 58.1-1821 Application: Corporate Income Tax
Dear ****:
This will reply to your letter in which you appeal the denial of a corporate income tax refund on behalf of your client, ***** (the "Taxpayer"), for the taxable year ended December 31, 2009.
FACTS
The Taxpayer filed an amended corporate income tax return for the 2009 taxable year claiming a refund. The Department denied the refund request on the basis that the amended return was filed after the three years statute of limitations period to claim a refund had expired. The Taxpayer appealed. The Taxpayer believes that the return was accidentally sent to ***** (State A) and then mailed to the Department by State A officials. The Taxpayer asks the Department to accept the return as timely filed because it can show that the return was mailed to State A within the three-year limitations period.
DETERMINATION
Virginia Code § 58.1-453 allows taxpayers that are required to file corporate income tax returns to elect an extended due date six months after the original due date or 30 days after the extended due date for filing the federal income tax return, whichever is later. In order to elect an extension, a taxpayer must (i) file the return within the extended period, and (ii) on or before the original due date for the filing of the return, pay the full amount properly estimated as the balance of the tax due for the taxable year. If the taxpayer intends to take the extension but then does not file a return or pay the full amount of the tax due by the extended due date, the taxpayer is treated as if no extension had been granted.
When a return has been filed on or before an original or extended due date, whether such extension was granted by the Department or automatically, the general rule is that an amended return must be filed within three years of the original or extended due date, as applicable. See Va. Code § 58.1-1823.
In this case, the Taxpayer filed its original 2009 return on the last day of the extension period, October 15, 2010, and paid the tax due. Therefore, the Taxpayer had until October 15, 2013, to file the amended return to claim a refund. Department records, however, show that the return was not filed until early November 2013.
The Taxpayer states that, at the same time it mailed the 2009 amended return, it also mailed original returns for the 2012 taxable year to both Virginia and State A. The Taxpayer believes that the amended return was sent accidentally to State A and asks that the Department accept the certified mail receipts to both Virginia and State A that are dated October 15, 2013, as evidence that the amended return was timely filed.
Even if the amended 2009 return had been accidentally mailed to State A, sending a Virginia income tax return to the revenue agency of another state does not constitute a filing with the Department. Further, because the mailing to State A was made on the last day prescribed by law on which to file with Virginia, it would have been physically impossible for State A to get the return to Virginia within the statute of limitations. Accordingly, I find that the amended return for the 2009 taxable year was not filed within the three year limitations period to claim a refund.
In its appeal, the Taxpayer made an assumption that state revenue departments forward returns received for other states to the appropriate state. While this may be practiced in other states, the Department typically returns such filings to taxpayers.
The Code of Virginia sections cited are available on-line at www.tax.virginia.gov in the Laws, Rules & Decisions section of the Department's web site. If you have any questions regarding this determination, you may contact ***** in the Office of Tax Policy, Appeals and Rulings, at *****.
Sincerely,
Craig M. Burns
Tax Commissioner
AR/1-5775780660.M