Tax Type
Individual Income Tax
Description
Refund statute of limitations
Topic
Payment and Refund
Statute of Limitations
Date Issued
07-29-1988
July 29, 1988
Re: §58.1-1821 Application/ Individual Income Tax
Dear******************
This will reply to your letter of November 10, 1987 on behalf of ************* (taxpayer), seeking reconsideration of the department's previous denial of the taxpayer's request for a refund of an overpayment of individual income taxes for taxable year 1979. You contend that the taxpayer initially submitted her 1979 return in 1981. However, the department has no record of ever receiving this return in 1981.
Virginia Code §58.1-499 provides in pertinent part that, "[i]n the case of any overpayment of any tax, ... the Tax Commissioner shall order a refund of the amount of the overpayment to the taxpayer..." However, this section provides further that no refund shall be made, "whether on discovery by the Department or on written application of the taxpayer, ii such discovery is not made or such written application is not received within three years from the last day prescribed by law for the timely filing of the return, or within sixty days from the final determination of any change or correction in the liability of the taxpayer for any federal tax upon which the state tax is based, whichever is later."
Since the only evidence of the 1979 refund requested by the taxpayer in this case was not received by the department until October 1987, well beyond the three year statutory period required above, I find no basis in Virginia law for granting the taxpayer's request. In addition, unlike the refund requested by the taxpayer, the department's 1978 assessment issued to the taxpayer was issued within three years of the date the return was filed as required by Virginia Code §58.1-1812.
Therefore, I find no basis for the relief sought by the taxpayer in this case.
Sincerely,
W. H. Forst
Tax Commissioner
Rulings of the Tax Commissioner