Petition with the US Tax Court?

Question

I live in Las Vegas, and I received a Notice of deficiency that I disagree with, so I need to file a petition with the US Tax Court in Washington, D.C. as instructed in the letter I received.

Should I fill and file the petition on my own, or should I consult a tax attorney 1st?

Answer 1

You only petition the tax court if you are not willing to file your own return.

You still have the option to file and correct any thing that is incorrect if IRS was to file for you.

The letter probably has you as Single and 1 exemption and standard deduction.

file your return on your own corrected tax return.

The letter your received (LTR 3219C) gives you 90 days to file, you ignore the first letter whch gave you 30 days to file.

Get busy and file the return and mail to the address listed on the return. Call the phone number listed on the letter right now and they will explain the letter to you.  

If you file a petition you must pay a fee and non refundable and takes years to be processed.

Answer 2

It might be a good idea to consult a tax attorney as it's possible you DO owe the money.

Did you respond to the previous letters and try to resolve the issue?

Answer 3

It depends on the amount of money you're talking about.  

In general, I'd recommend going with an attorney.  Once you start dealing with the Tax Court, you start getting into a complicated set of rules and procedures.  If you don't know what you're doing it's very easy to miss a deadline or to not do a filing correctly, and messing up on technicalities can result in your entire case being dismissed.

If you are disputing less than $50,000 in tax, you can file the case as a "small tax case".  The rules are more relaxed in a small tax case, making it more friendly to someone who is representing himself or herself.  The downside to filing as a small tax case is that you have no right to appeal if you lose.