IRS Petition Form 2: How to File With the U.S. Tax Court

To file a petition with the Tax Court, complete Form 2 (the simplified petition), attach the IRS notice you are challenging along with Form 4 and Form 5, and submit the packet with a $60 filing fee either by mail to the court in Washington, DC or electronically through the court’s DAWSON system. The petition must arrive within the deadline printed on your IRS notice, and that deadline cannot be extended for any reason.

Confirm You Have a Notice That Lets You Petition

The Tax Court can only hear your case if the IRS has issued you a specific type of notice. The two common ones are the Notice of Deficiency (also called a 90-Day Letter), which the IRS sends after determining you owe additional income, estate, or gift tax,¹ and the Notice of Determination, which comes from the IRS Independent Office of Appeals after a Collection Due Process hearing on a proposed levy or a filed lien.²

You may also petition after a final IRS determination denying innocent spouse relief, or after certain decisions on worker classification or interest abatement. Without one of these notices in hand, there is nothing to file.

Know Your Deadline Before You Do Anything Else

Tax Court filing deadlines are jurisdictional. A judge has no authority to extend them, and the court will dismiss a late petition regardless of the reason.

Notice of Deficiency: 90 days from the mailing date on the notice. If the notice is addressed to a person outside the United States, 150 days.³
Notice of Determination (CDP): 30 days from the date of the determination.²

Weekends and DC legal holidays do not count if they fall on the last day. Confusing the 90-day deficiency window with the 30-day CDP window is a common and permanent mistake, so check which notice you actually hold.

The Postmark and Electronic Filing Rules

If you mail your petition, the postmark date is the filing date, not the date the court receives it. This works for USPS mail and for IRS-designated private delivery services.⁴ Only specific service tiers qualify: FedEx Priority Overnight is on the list, FedEx Ground is not.⁵ If you file electronically through DAWSON, the petition is timely as long as you submit it by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the due date.⁶

If You Miss the Window

The Tax Court can no longer hear your case. Your remaining option is to pay the disputed tax and sue for a refund in a U.S. District Court or the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which is the exact prepayment situation Tax Court is designed to avoid.

Choose Small Tax Case or Regular Case

If the amount in dispute for any single tax year is $50,000 or less, you can elect the small tax case procedure, sometimes called an S case. The same threshold applies to CDP appeals, innocent spouse petitions, and interest abatement cases.⁷

The S case procedure is less formal and easier to handle without a lawyer. The tradeoff: the decision is final, cannot be appealed by either side, and cannot be cited as precedent.⁷ You elect it by checking a box on the petition form. If you check neither box, the court treats it as a regular case.⁸

Fill Out Form 2

Form 2 is the simplified petition available on the Tax Court’s website, and it is what the court expects from self-represented filers.⁹ It asks for the following:

The type of IRS action you are challenging. Check the box matching your notice.
The notice details: the date the IRS issued the notice, the city and state of the issuing office, and the tax year or period involved.
Your election of small tax case or regular case procedure.
The specific errors you believe the IRS made. Be concrete. “The IRS disallowed my business deductions, but I have receipts for every expense” is usable. “I disagree with the IRS” is not. Any issue you fail to raise is treated as conceded.¹⁰
The supporting facts behind each error, stated separately as numbered points.
Your name, mailing address, email, phone number, and signature. Both spouses sign if the case involves a joint return.

You are not writing a legal brief. Keep the explanations plain, specific, and organized.

If You Are Filing for a Corporation

A corporation or other non-individual entity must file a corporate disclosure statement (Form 6) with the petition, identifying any parent corporation and any publicly held corporation that owns 10 percent or more of its stock.¹¹

Assemble the Full Filing Packet

A complete paper filing has four items:¹²

Your signed Form 2, with a copy of the IRS notice attached. Redact your Social Security number or taxpayer identification number on the notice copy.
Form 4, Statement of Taxpayer Identification Number. This is the only document in the packet that should show your SSN or EIN. The court keeps it separate from the public file.
Form 5, Request for Place of Trial. Pick the city nearest to you from the list on the form. If you leave this out, you will need to file it separately later.⁹
The $60 filing fee, paid by check or money order to “Clerk, United States Tax Court.”¹²

If you cannot afford the fee, submit an Application for Waiver of Filing Fee with your paper packet. The court does not process the waiver electronically until after the petition itself is filed, so it needs to travel with the mailing. Without either the fee or an approved waiver, the case will be dismissed.¹³

Submit the Petition

By Mail

Send the complete packet to:

United States Tax Court
400 Second Street, NW
Washington, DC 20217-0002¹⁴

Use certified or registered mail so you have proof of the postmark date. If you use a private delivery service, verify the specific tier appears on the IRS’s designated list. Standard ground services from FedEx and UPS do not qualify.⁵

Electronically Through DAWSON

DAWSON (Docket Access Within a Secure Online Network) lets you file without mailing anything. Create a petitioner account through the Tax Court’s website, complete the required fields, upload your documents, and pay the fee through Pay.gov.⁶ DAWSON works in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, but not Internet Explorer.

Electronic filing has one real practical advantage: a DAWSON petition is timely if submitted by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the due date, while a mailed petition needs to reach a postal counter in time to get a same-day postmark.

After the Court Receives Your Petition

Once the court processes the petition, you receive a notice with your docket number. Mail filers get it by post; electronic filers see it in DAWSON immediately.¹² The IRS then files an Answer that names the attorney assigned to your case, and from that point on you send a copy of every document you file to that attorney as well.

You do not owe the disputed tax while the case is pending, and most Tax Court cases settle before trial.¹⁵

1
Taxpayer Advocate Service. 90-Day Notice of Deficiency
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6330 – First Hearing Before Levy
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6213 – Restrictions Applicable to Deficiencies; Petition to Tax Court
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7502 – Timely Mailing Treated as Timely Filing and Paying
5
Internal Revenue Service. Private Delivery Services (PDS)
6
United States Tax Court. DAWSON
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7463 – Disputes Involving $50,000 or Less
8
United States Tax Court. Form 2 – Petition (Simplified Form)
9
United States Tax Court. Case Related Forms
10
United States Tax Court. Rules of Practice and Procedure – Rule 34
11
United States Tax Court. Rules of Practice and Procedure – Rule 20
12
United States Tax Court. Guidance for Petitioners – Starting a Case
13
United States Tax Court. Court Fees
14
United States Tax Court. Places of Trial
15
United States Tax Court. Guidance for Petitioners – About the Court