Opinion
22230-21S
01-10-2022
Bradlee T. Howe & Anne H. Howe Petitioners v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Respondent
ORDER OF DISMISSAL FOR LACK OF JURISDICTION
Maurice B. Foley Chief Judge.
On June 14, 2021, the Court received from petitioners a petition, attached to which was a copy of a notice of deficiency dated April 26, 2021, issued to petitioners with respect to the 2018 taxable year. Although the petition was unsigned, to protect petitioners' statutory time period within which to begin a case, the Court filed the document to commence this case at Docket No. 22230-21S. On September 16, 2021, the Court issued an Order directing the filing of a Ratification of Petition for this litigation on or before November 1, 2021. On October 25, 2021, the Court then received from petitioners a Ratification of Petition form, which was initially filed as such. However, on that form, petitioners had crossed out the language pertaining to ratifying and affirming the filing of the petition and had instead replaced with language indicating that they withdrew the petition. Further annotations explained that petitioners preferred to work administratively through the Internal Revenue Service to resolve the 2018 tax matters, and had done so through payment, rather than to continue with the instant Court proceeding. Accordingly, the document is not in the nature of a Ratification of Petition and it appears that petitioners do not intend to file a proper Ratification of Petition to pursue this litigation, as directed in the Court's Order dated September 16, 2021, The foregoing considered, it is
ORDERED that petitioners' document filed October 25, 2021, as a Ratification of Petition shall be recharacterized as a letter. It is further
ORDERED that, on the Court's own motion, this case is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.