No, this is not about those e-mails, ostensibly from Canadian druggists, that flood spam filters. This is about the hardlaboring intake clerks and flailing datestampers who are the make-it-happeners at The Old Vic, s/a/k/a the Glasshouse Vic Lundy Built on Second Street in The Stateless City.

Clerks and stampers alike are overwhelmed by a tsunami of petitions. While the average calendar year sees somewhere between 23K and 26K petitions, the 2021 season has seen 24K+ already, with no end in sight.

They’re doing the best they can, and of course collection is stayed upon timely filing of petitions from SNODs and CDPs, but it may be a wee while before Tax Court tips off IRS about every “new-fledged, untried” petition. So Mr. Rettig’s myrmidons may “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war” already.

So if your clients are thus embrangled, contact the Public Affairs Office at (202) 521-3355 or email publicaffairs@ustaxcourt.gov.

Here’s the official: https://ustaxcourt.gov/resources/press/07232021.pdf

Edited to add, 7/28/21: Y’all will recall Tax Court was not accepting mail from 3/18/20 to 7/10/20, and electronic filing of petitions was then, and still is, verboten, Rule 34 notwithstanding. Petitioners were told to mail timely, and when their mailed petitions were returned to them, remail same with original envelope, thus evidencing timely mailing. By the time time USPS or PDS returned the undelivered petitions, and the petitioners returned same (there was no time limit set for the return, so long as the original filing was timely), I’m sure at least some of what would have been included had calendar 2020 been an ordinary year got shunted into 2021.