IRS / U.S. Pandemic-Era Tax Relief Claims: Protective Claim Opportunities for Individuals, Businesses, and Estates

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IRS / U.S. Pandemic-Era Tax Relief Claims: Protective[1] Opportunities for Individuals, Businesses, and Estates

U.S. Tax years 2019 to 2023 (inclusive) maybe still be open for IRS refund claims and ‘COVID’ refund payments to eligible taxpayers – including U.S. citizens and green card holders living in Ireland, and Irish taxpayers who had U.S, tax withheld on U.S. income including sales of real estate.

If you are owed a refund or paid a penalty for these years, then act now before deadline expires.

While the IRS is contesting some of the issues, a protective claim filed in time will preserve your rights.

  • Individuals: Potential claims may involve pandemic-era penalties, interest, missed or misapplied recovery payments, income tax overpayments, capital gain reporting issues, estimated tax penalties, and delayed refund or refund-suit deadlines.

The Pandemic recovery payments come to $3,200 for most qualifying taxpayers- including U.S. citizens and green card holders living in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

For non-U.S. taxpayers such as Irish taxpayers and residents, late or missed refunds claims maybe covered as well as refund claims for ‘FIRPTA’ withheld on the sale of U.S, real estate.

For more detail on this for individuals see www.seytaxgroup.com/Individualprotectiveclaim

  • Corporations and businesses: Potential claims may involve corporate income tax, partnership or S corporation items, payroll and employment taxes, excise taxes, business-related penalties, interest, and refund deadlines affected by COVID-era postponement rules.

If your business was denied a tax relief or claim or fined a penalty due to

  • Estates and transfer-tax matters: Potential claims may involve federal estate tax, gift tax, generation-skipping transfer tax, fiduciary income tax, transfer-tax elections, payment deadlines, penalty abatements, and refund deadlines.

Transfer taxes entail complex valuations and filing elections often which can be highly technical.

Key Years and Claim Types to Review Now

Years 

  • 2019 tax year: Potential claims for late-payment penalties, late-filing penalties, estimated tax penalties, and related interest affected by COVID-era disaster postponement rules.
  • 2020 tax year: Potential claims involving pandemic-period penalties and interest, first and second recovery payments, income tax overpayments, and refund deadlines.
  • 2021 tax year: Potential claims involving the third recovery payment, late-payment or filing penalties, estimated tax penalties, and IRS processing or account errors.
  • 2022 and 2023 tax years: Potential claims where assessments, payments, refund deadlines, or penalty, and interest accruals overlapped with the COVID disaster period ending July 10, 2023.

Taxes

  • Corporate and business taxes: Corporate income tax, employment taxes, excise taxes, and business-related penalties may be covered where the relevant deadline, payment, assessment, or claim period was affected.
  • Capital gains: Capital gains are not separately “forgiven” by the pandemic rules, but claims may be available where a capital gain was reported on an affected individual, trust, estate, partnership, S corporation, or corporate return and the taxpayer has a related overpayment, penalty, interest, or deadline issue.
  • Estate, gift, and transfer taxes: These taxes may be covered, but claims require careful review because elections, extensions, valuation issues, and transfer-tax limitation periods are often highly technical.
  • Post–July 10, 2023, payments: These require special caution. Some claims are governed by a two-year deadline measured from the date of payment, which may expire before the broader pandemic protective-claim window.

Later federally declared disasters: Taxpayers affected by hurricanes, wildfires, or other later disasters may have additional deadline arguments, but those positions remain protective and should be carefully documented.  See also: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-relief-in-disaster-situations

Pandemic-Era Tax Relief Claims: A Short Window May Still Be Open

Taxpayers who paid IRS penalties or interest during the pandemic era, missed recovery payments, or received unresolved IRS notices from 2020 through 2023 should review their accounts now. Some COVID-era relief was automatic. Other relief requires a properly prepared refund or abatement claim, filed on time, with enough detail to preserve the taxpayer’s legal position.

The central opportunity involves the federal disaster-relief rules under section 7508A. Congress amended those rules before the pandemic to require certain tax deadlines to be disregarded during federally declared disasters. For COVID-19, the key period is commonly measured from January 20, 2020, through July 10, 2023, a period of 1,268 days.

That broad reading is still disputed. The IRS has taken a narrower administrative position, generally recognizing only a 60-day postponement for many purposes. Taxpayers seeking the benefit of the full COVID disaster period should assume that the claim is protective at this stage and may be denied administratively. Preserving the claim now may still be valuable because the courts have begun addressing the issue, and the filing deadline may arrive before the law is finally settled.

The strongest taxpayer authority is Kwong v. United States.[2] In that case, the Court of Federal Claims applied a broader COVID disaster-period reading in the refund-suit deadline context. Abdo v. Commissioner[3] also supports taxpayers by treating the disaster-disregard rule as mandatory rather than merely discretionary, although it did not resolve every outer-limit issue. Together, these cases create a meaningful opportunity, but not a guaranteed refund.

Recovery payments remain a separate but related area. The first and second stimulus payments were claimed through the 2020 Recovery Rebate Credit. The third payment was claimed through the 2021 Recovery Rebate Credit. For many taxpayers who never filed returns, the ordinary deadlines to claim those credits have already passed. However, taxpayers who filed timely returns, received adjustment notices, had credits denied, or had payments misapplied should still review their IRS account records. A new claim may be barred if the statute has closed, but a timely claim, pending adjustment, or processing error may still preserve rights.

Compliance Matters

These claims are not simple refund requests. A valid claim should identify the exact tax period, tax type, payment dates, assessment dates, penalty or interest amounts, legal grounds, and refund amount. It should also be filed in the correct manner, sent to the correct place, and supported by reliable proof of timely submission.

That level of detail matters because courts regularly reject tax claims for procedural reasons even when the taxpayer may have had a substantive argument. Angelus Milling Co. v. Commissioner[4] enforced the rule that the IRS must be clearly alerted to the grounds for refund. A taxpayer generally cannot present one theory to the IRS and then switch to a different theory in court.

Timing rules can be just as unforgiving. United States v. Dalm[5] shows how strictly courts apply refund-claim deadlines. Flora v. United States[6] requires full payment before many refund suits can proceed. And Greene-Thapedi v. Commissioner[7] and Commissioner v. Zuch[8] confirm that collection proceedings are generally not a dependable way to obtain a refund.

The lesson is practical: a claim that is vague, late, incomplete, misdirected, unsigned, unsupported, or based on the wrong procedural path may fail before the taxpayer ever reaches the merits.

What to Do

Taxpayers with meaningful penalties, interest, missed recovery payments, business tax overpayments, capital gain reporting issues, payroll tax liabilities, excise tax liabilities, estate or gift tax issues, or unresolved pandemic-era IRS notices should act now.

For many pandemic-era protective claims, July 10, 2026 is the critical filing deadline. Some claims tied to later payments may have different deadlines, including shorter two-year deadlines measured from the payment date. That means a taxpayer should not wait until July 2026 to begin the review.

Contact us promptly if you want to evaluate whether a protective claim should be filed. The next step is a transcript and deadline review, followed by a carefully drafted claim that preserves all available arguments while clearly acknowledging that the broader pandemic-relief position remains disputed.

Contact us today.

We have over 14 years’ experience bringing U.S. taxpayers into compliance.  We are accredited in Ireland (tax advisor) and United States (CPA, tax attorney) with offices in Dublin (Ireland) and New York.

You can contact us at

  • Enquiry Submission Link
  • www.seytaxgroup.com
  • info@seytaxgroup.com
  • Irish Office:
    • Sey Tax Group
    • Morrison Chambers
    • 32 Nassau Street Suite 35
    • Dublin 2 Ireland D02KW64
    • Tel         (01) 6834100
  • New York Office:
    • Stephen P Casey ESQ.
    • 14 Wall Street 20th Floor
    • New York NY 10005-2123
    • Tel          (212) 204-8600
  •  Certifications:  
    • Chartered Tax Adviser (Ireland)
    • NY Bar – ID 5589049
    • WA  CPA – ID 31411

                             

All this information (above) is not specific to your facts and circumstances and must not be relied upon. None of this information (above) is advice. This communication does not constitute any form of legal or contractual or any other relationship. You should always seek specific advice from a competent professional having made a full disclosure of all pertinent, or material, facts, or informat

[1] Protective claim: A protective claim is a filing made to preserve a taxpayer’s right to a refund or abatement while the law, facts, or amount remains uncertain. It does not guarantee payment; it keeps the claim alive, so the taxpayer is not barred later by an expired deadline.

[2] Kwong v. United States, 179 Fed. Cl. 382 (2025).

[3] Abdo v. Commissioner, 162 T.C. 148 (2024).

[4] Angelus Milling Co. v. Commissioner, 325 U.S. 293 (1945).

[5] United States v. Dalm, 494 U.S. 596 (1990).

[6] Flora v. United States, 362 U.S. 145 (1960).

[7] Greene-Thapedi v. Commissioner, 126 T.C. 1 (2006).

[8] Commissioner v. Zuch, 605 U.S. 422 (2025).