COVID IRS Penalty Refund: File Form 843 Before July 10, 2026

If you paid an IRS late-filing penalty, late-payment penalty, or underpayment interest on a federal tax bill for tax year 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2022, you may be owed a refund. To preserve your claim, you generally have to file IRS Form 843 by July 10, 2026.

That deadline is roughly seven weeks from today. After it passes, the law shuts the door even if your underlying claim is right on the merits.

This article explains where the refund right comes from (two recent court decisions, Kwong and Abdo), why July 10, 2026 is the operative date, who is and isn't covered, and how to file a Form 843 protective refund claim on your own.

One important point up front, because TaxCourtHelp's main subject is the U.S. Tax Court: a refund claim like this does not belong in Tax Court. Tax Court hears deficiency cases—disputes over taxes the IRS says you owe but haven't paid. Once you've paid a penalty and want it back, your forum is the IRS first (via Form 843) and then a U.S. district court or the U.S. Court of Federal Claims if you have to sue. We'll come back to that jurisdictional split later, because it's the single most common mistake we expect readers to make.

The Deadline: What You Have Until July 10, 2026

The hard deadline is Friday, July 10, 2026, postmarked.

It comes from two pieces of the Internal Revenue Code stacked on top of each other:

• IRC § 7508A(d) (the disaster postponement statute, as it existed for COVID) treated the COVID-19 federally declared disaster period as a "disregarded" period for tax deadlines. That period ran from January 20, 2020 through July 10, 2023 (more on the math below).
• IRC § 6511(a) gives a taxpayer 3 years from the date a return was filed (or 2 years from the date a tax was paid, whichever is later) to claim a refund.

For taxpayers whose return due date was postponed into the disaster window, three years from July 10, 2023 is July 10, 2026. That is the floor.

If you actually paid the penalty more recently—say, on a 2024 or 2025 installment plan—the 2-year-from-payment branch of § 6511(a) may give you a later deadline. But for the broad class of taxpayers who paid penalties at or near filing, July 10, 2026 is the bright line.

Miss it and the IRS cannot pay the refund, full stop. That is not the IRS being harsh—it is what § 6511(a) requires.

What Kwong Said (Court of Federal Claims, November 2025)

The case that gave taxpayers a runway to bring these refund claims is Kwong v. United States, 179 Fed. Cl. 382 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 25, 2025), Docket No. 23-267, decided by Judge Molly R. Silfen of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Kwong is not a Tax Court case. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims is a separate Article I federal court in Washington, D.C. that hears money claims against the federal government, including refund suits brought after a taxpayer has already paid. If you want a fuller comparison of the three tax forums, see Tax Court vs. District Court vs. Court of Federal Claims.

What the court actually ruled. The Nov. 25, 2025 order in Kwong was a partial summary judgment on a narrow but important question: whether Mr. Kwong's refund suit was filed in time under IRC § 6532(a). The court held that the § 7508A(d) disregarded period applies to the deadline for filing a refund suit, so Mr. Kwong's February 2023 complaint was timely. That is the holding.

The reasoning that produced the buzz. In getting there, Judge Silfen had to interpret § 7508A(d) broadly. Applying the Supreme Court's Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), the court exercised its independent judgment and declined to defer to Treas. Reg. § 301.7508A-1(g)(3)(i), the regulation that capped the mandatory postponement at one year, on the ground that the regulation "appear[s] to misread the statute." The court read the statute to disregard the full disaster period plus the 60-day tail—for COVID, January 20, 2020 through July 10, 2023.

What that reasoning implies for penalties and interest (but is not yet a holding). If § 7508A(d) disregards that full window, the reasoning naturally extends to penalties and interest that accrued inside it: nothing was "late" during a disregarded period. National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins has publicly stated that, in her view, "the IRS should not have assessed penalties for late filing or payment during that 3.5-year period, nor charged interest on those amounts." That is a strong extrapolation of Kwong's logic. It is not yet a merits holding that any court has issued on penalty and interest refundability.

Why does this distinction matter for you? Because the IRS has not acquiesced in the extrapolation. Form 843 claims grounded in Kwong's logic may be paid, may be denied, or may sit while the IRS decides on a position. A protective claim filed before July 10, 2026 preserves your seat at the table no matter how that plays out.

What Abdo Said Earlier (Tax Court, 2024)

Kwong did not appear out of nowhere. The structural foundation was laid the year before in Abdo v. Commissioner, 162 T.C. No. 7 (Apr. 2, 2024).

The Abdos got a notice of deficiency dated December 2, 2019. Their statutory deadline to file a Tax Court petition was March 2, 2020. They mailed it on March 17, 2020—fifteen days "late" under normal § 6213(a) timing.

On March 13, 2020, the President declared a nationwide COVID-19 emergency, retroactive to January 20, 2020. The Abdos argued that triggered § 7508A(d), the disaster postponement was self-executing, and their March 17 filing fell inside the disregarded window. The IRS argued that a Treasury regulation, Treas. Reg. § 301.7508A-1(g)(1) and (g)(2), limited the mandatory postponement to acts the Secretary had separately chosen to postpone—and the Secretary had not extended Tax Court petition deadlines for taxpayers in the Abdos' situation.

The Tax Court rejected the IRS position. The court held that § 7508A(d) provides for "an unambiguously self-executing postponement period"—it operates by force of statute whether or not the Secretary acts. The regulatory provisions that tried to narrow it (Treas. Reg. § 301.7508A-1(g)(1) and (g)(2)) were invalid. The Abdos' petition was timely, and the Tax Court had jurisdiction.

The Commissioner did not appeal. Abdo is final.

For our purposes, Abdo matters because it established the legal principle that Kwong then carried into the refund context: when § 7508A(d) postpones a deadline, regulations cannot shrink that postponement, and the postponement applies whether the IRS notices or not.

How July 10, 2026 Was Calculated

It's worth walking through the math, because the deadline isn't arbitrary—it's built from primary statute.

Step 1: When did the COVID § 7508A(d) postponement window start?

Section 7508A(d) measures from the "earliest incident date" in the underlying disaster declaration. The FEMA major disaster declarations for COVID-19 used January 20, 2020 as the incident-onset date. So the window opened January 20, 2020.

Step 2: When did it close?

The federally declared COVID-19 public health emergency ended on May 11, 2023. Section 7508A(d) added a 60-day tail to that ending date. May 11, 2023 plus 60 days is July 10, 2023. So the disregarded period ran from January 20, 2020 through July 10, 2023.

Step 3: How does § 6511(a) attach?

Section 6511(a) gives you 3 years from the date the return was filed, or 2 years from the date the tax was paid, whichever is later, to file a refund claim. For taxpayers whose return due date was postponed to July 10, 2023 by § 7508A(d), three years from that date is July 10, 2026.

That's the deadline. It's a floor, not a ceiling: if your most recent qualifying payment was in 2024 or later, the 2-year-from-payment branch may give you longer. But if you wait past July 10, 2026 hoping the 2-year branch saves you, you may find it doesn't.

A statutory wrinkle worth mentioning. Congress redesignated former § 7508A(d) as § 7508A(e) in P.L. 119-29 (enacted July 24, 2025) and extended the mandatory tail period as part of the redesignation. That change applies only to declarations made after July 24, 2025. COVID predates it. Everything in this article runs on former § 7508A(d) with its 60-day tail. If you look up the current Code text, you'll see § 7508A(e); the COVID analysis still works under the old subsection (d).

Who Is Eligible

You're a likely candidate for a Kwong-style refund claim if all of these are true:

• You're an individual, business, estate, or trust that filed a federal return for tax year 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2022.
• The IRS assessed (and you paid) one or more of: a failure-to-file penalty under § 6651(a)(1), a failure-to-pay penalty under § 6651(a)(2), an estimated-tax penalty under § 6654 (individuals) or § 6655 (corporations), or underpayment interest under § 6601.
• The penalty or interest accrued during the window January 20, 2020 through July 10, 2023.
• The penalty has not already been abated under first-time abatement, reasonable cause, or Notice 2022-36 (there's nothing left to refund if it's already been zeroed out).

If you don't have your account transcript in front of you, you'll want to pull it before you draft the claim—it's the cleanest record of which penalties and interest were assessed in which year. Our guides on how to get and read your IRS transcripts and how to read IRS transcript codes walk through how to read TC 166 (failure-to-file), TC 270/276 (failure-to-pay), and TC 196 (interest) line items.

What This Doesn't Cover

Be honest with yourself about scope—Kwong is narrower than the headlines suggest.

The opportunity does not cover:

• International information return penalties. Form 5471, 5472, 8865, 8938 penalties under § 6038, § 6038A, and § 6038B, and Title 31 FBAR penalties, rest on different statutory hooks that were not before the Kwong court.
• State tax penalties. Kwong construes a federal statute. State revenue agencies operate under their own rules.
• Penalties already abated. If you've already won first-time abatement or reasonable cause relief on a penalty, there's nothing left to refund on that one. See our companion guide on how to request IRS penalty abatement if you haven't yet pursued that path.
• Tax years outside 2019–2022 (generally). Earlier years are possible if penalties or interest accrued during the disaster window, but those are edge cases that benefit from a professional eye.

Maybe-covered (no settled answer). Late-filing penalties on partnership returns under § 6698 and S-corporation returns under § 6699 are deadline-driven penalties whose accrual was arguably suspended by the same § 7508A(d) logic. Neither Kwong nor Abdo ruled on them directly. A protective Form 843 by July 10, 2026 preserves the position; the IRS's response to entity-level claims is genuinely unsettled, and entity-level refunds are generally beyond comfortable pro se scope—get professional help.

If you're outside the core scope and unsure, this is a good moment to talk to a Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic or other professional help. The LITC income ceiling is 250% of the poverty line.

How To File Form 843 as a Protective Claim

The form is Form 843, Claim for Refund and Request for Abatement (PDF; instructions).

Form 843 is the correct vehicle for penalty and interest refunds. It is not Form 1040-X—Form 1040-X is for amending income tax. The Form 843 instructions are explicit on the point. If you also need to amend your income tax for the same year, that's a separate filing; our guide on how to file an amended return covers it.

A few mechanics that catch people out:

One form per tax year, per type of refund. The instructions require a separate Form 843 for each tax period. If you had penalties in 2020, 2021, and 2022, that's three separate forms.

Where to mail it. The Form 843 instructions say to send the form to the IRS service center where you would be required to file a current-year return for the tax to which the claim relates—use the current Form 1040 "Where to File" address for your state, using the no-payment-enclosed column (no payment goes with a Form 843 protective claim). If you're responding to a specific IRS notice about the penalty, mail to the address on the notice instead.

Send it certified mail, return receipt requested, with a postmark on or before July 10, 2026. Under IRC § 7502, the postmark date controls timeliness. Keep the green card and a copy of the form.

Line-by-line on Form 843:

• Top of form: For penalty refunds, check the box for "An abatement or refund of a penalty or addition to tax due to reasonable cause or other reason allowed under the law." For interest-only claims, check the box for "A refund of excessive interest paid"—the reasonable-cause language is penalty-specific.
• Line 1: The tax period (e.g., "01/01/2020 to 12/31/2020").
• Line 2: The dollar amount of penalty/interest you're claiming back.
• Line 3: The date(s) you paid it.
• Line 4: Check "Income" (for § 6651 penalties or § 6601 interest on individual income tax).
• Line 5: Check "1040" (for individual returns).
• Line 6: Identify the Code section—"IRC § 6651(a)(1)," "IRC § 6651(a)(2)," "IRC § 6601," "IRC § 6654," whichever applies. One Form 843 per tax year is required, but a single Form 843 can cover multiple penalty types for the same year—list each Code section on this line.
• Line 7: Check box (d) "Other (specify)" and write "IRC § 7508A(d) postponement period; refund per Kwong v. United States." Do not rely on the reasonable-cause box for interest-only claims.
• Line 8: Your explanation. This is the heart of the claim.

Recommended Line 8 language. Practitioner consensus is to use something close to this:

PROTECTIVE REFUND CLAIM PURSUANT TO IRC § 7508A(d); SEE KWONG v. UNITED STATES, 179 Fed. Cl. 382 (2025)

Taxpayer respectfully requests refund (or abatement) of the [failure-to-file penalty under IRC § 6651(a)(1) / failure-to-pay penalty under IRC § 6651(a)(2) / underpayment interest under IRC § 6601] of $[amount] assessed for tax year [year]. The penalty/interest accrued during the COVID-19 federally declared disaster period (January 20, 2020 through July 10, 2023), which is disregarded under former IRC § 7508A(d). Following the reasoning of Kwong v. United States, 179 Fed. Cl. 382 (Fed. Cl. 2025), and Abdo v. Commissioner, 162 T.C. No. 7 (2024), the legal due date for the underlying act fell within the postponement window, and no penalty or interest properly accrued for that period.

This claim is filed within the period prescribed by IRC § 6511(a). To the extent this claim is treated as protective pending further development of the case law and any IRS guidance, taxpayer requests that the Service hold the claim in suspense and not deny it on the ground that it is contingent. Taxpayer also requests overpayment interest under IRC § 6611 on any refund paid.

Attach a copy of the relevant IRS notice (CP14, CP501, CP503, etc.) if you have one, and your account transcript for the year showing the penalty/interest assessments. If a representative is filing for you, attach Form 2848 (Power of Attorney). Both spouses must sign for joint-return years.

What a "Protective Claim" Is, and Why It Matters

A protective claim is a refund claim filed to lock in the § 6511(a) deadline while some contingency—here, the pending Federal Circuit appeal and ultimate fate of Kwong—is still unresolved.

The statutory anchor is Treas. Reg. § 301.6402-2(b)(1), which requires a refund claim to "set forth in detail each ground" and "facts sufficient to apprise the Commissioner of the exact basis thereof." A claim that fails this specificity test "will not be considered for any purpose as a claim for refund or credit." A protective claim still has to do that—identify you, the tax year, the type of tax, and the legal theory—but it doesn't require a final dollar amount, and it preserves the statute even if the underlying theory needs refinement later.

In plain English: if the government appeals Kwong and a higher court reverses, taxpayers who waited for the appellate result will find that § 6511(a) has already barred their claim. Taxpayers who filed a protective claim before July 10, 2026 preserved their position regardless.

The downside is small. If Kwong survives, your claim is already in the IRS's hands. If it doesn't, you've lost nothing but the postage.

What Happens After You File

Set expectations realistically.

The IRS may pay the claim, deny it (typically by Letter 105C for full disallowance or Letter 106C for partial), hold it in suspense while it works out a position, or simply not respond. Under IRC § 6532(a), you generally have to wait 6 months after filing the Form 843 before you can sue for the refund. The exception: if the IRS issues a notice of disallowance sooner, you can sue immediately—and you then have 2 years from the date of the disallowance to file the refund suit.

If a refund issues, IRC § 6611 requires overpayment interest from the date of the original overpayment to a date near refund issuance. Make sure your Form 843 asks for it.

If you do end up suing, the suit goes to a U.S. district court (in your federal district) or the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., under IRC § 7422. Either court has jurisdiction; the choice involves trade-offs (jury availability, prior precedent, travel).

As of the date of this article, the IRS has not issued any post-Kwong acquiescence or guidance saying it will process these refunds automatically. Do not assume processing will be quick. Do not assume the IRS will treat the claim the way you would.

The Jurisdictional Reality: Refund Suits Don't Go to Tax Court

This is the point most likely to trip up TaxCourtHelp readers, so it gets its own section.

The U.S. Tax Court is a deficiency forum. It hears cases where the IRS says you owe additional tax and you haven't paid it yet. You petition the Tax Court within 90 days of the notice of deficiency, and the court decides whether you owe what the IRS says you owe—before you've paid.

A Kwong-style claim is the opposite. You already paid the penalty. You want it back. That is a refund suit, not a deficiency case. Refund suits live in U.S. district court or the U.S. Court of Federal Claims under § 7422—not in Tax Court.

If you mistakenly file a Tax Court petition trying to get a paid penalty refunded, the Tax Court will dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. You'll have burned time you didn't have. Our guide on Tax Court vs. District Court vs. Court of Federal Claims explains the split in more depth.

If you haven't paid yet and are currently in Tax Court on a COVID-era § 6651 or § 6601 deficiency, the Kwong reasoning is available to you as a substantive defense—you don't have to pay first, then seek refund. Raise § 7508A(d) and the Abdo / Kwong line of reasoning in your pretrial memorandum and at trial as a reason the underlying penalty or interest never properly accrued. The Tax Court already accepted the Abdo framing on the regulatory invalidation point.

The other Tax Court connection: Abdo-style arguments about late-filed Tax Court petitions during the COVID window are a separate procedural matter—those are about jurisdiction over the deficiency case itself, not about refunds. If your situation involves a late petition rather than a paid penalty, that's a different conversation.

Status of Kwong on Appeal

After the Nov. 25, 2025 partial summary judgment, the Court of Federal Claims entered final judgment for the taxpayer on March 17, 2026. The government did not let it stand. On May 15, 2026, the IRS filed a Notice of Appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. As of this article's publication, the case is pending before the Federal Circuit, and full briefing and argument will take many months.

That changes the timeline, not the strategy. Until the Federal Circuit rules, the IRS has no acquiesced position on the broader penalty-and-interest refund theory drawn from Kwong. Form 843 claims may be paid, denied, or held in suspense. The July 10, 2026 deadline under § 6511(a) does not pause for the appeal. A protective claim filed before that date preserves your position no matter how the Federal Circuit rules.

To check current status, the underlying docket is Kwong v. United States, No. 23-267 (Fed. Cl.) on PACER (registration and fees required). The Federal Circuit appeal will have its own docket number once fully docketed, searchable through Federal Circuit PACER or the Federal Circuit's public opinions/orders page.

What To Do Now

If you think you might be eligible, here is a concrete order of operations.

1. Pull your IRS account transcripts for tax years 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. You can request them online at IRS.gov or by mail. Our guide on how to get and read your IRS transcripts explains how.

2. Identify any penalty or interest assessments during the window January 20, 2020 through July 10, 2023. Look for TC 166 (failure-to-file penalty), TC 270 and TC 276 (failure-to-pay penalty), and TC 196 (interest)—and confirm those amounts were actually paid, not abated.

3. Draft a separate Form 843 for each year that qualifies. Use the Line 8 protective-claim language above. Sign it (both spouses for joint years).

4. Mail each Form 843 certified mail, return receipt requested, to the IRS service center listed for your state in the current Form 1040 "Where to File" table (no-payment-enclosed column), postmarked on or before July 10, 2026. Keep copies and the return receipts.

5. Calendar a six-month follow-up. Under § 6532(a), you generally can't sue for refund until 6 months after filing, unless the IRS denies the claim sooner.

6. If you need help, a Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic can assist free of charge if your income is at or below 250% of the poverty line. For more complex situations (multiple years, business returns, international filings), our guide on when to get professional help with your tax dispute covers when paid help is the right call. Multi-year claims, international information returns, S-corp or partnership returns, and trust returns are generally beyond comfortable pro se scope.

If you do nothing by July 10, 2026, the money is gone—not because the IRS is hostile, but because § 6511(a) won't let it be paid out after the deadline.

Resources

• IRC § 7508A (Cornell LII) — disaster postponement; current text shows redesignation by P.L. 119-29; former subsection (d) with 60-day tail applies to COVID
• IRC § 6511 (Cornell LII) — refund claim limitations
• IRC § 6651 (Cornell LII) — failure-to-file and failure-to-pay penalties
• IRC § 6601 (Cornell LII) — interest on underpayments
• IRC § 6402 (Cornell LII) — authority for refund claims
• IRC § 6532 (Cornell LII) — six-month wait before refund suit
• IRC § 7422 (Cornell LII) — civil actions for refund
• Treas. Reg. § 301.6402-2 (Cornell LII) — refund claim content and protective claim doctrine
• Form 843 (PDF) — Claim for Refund and Request for Abatement
• Instructions for Form 843 (PDF)
• Kwong v. United States, 179 Fed. Cl. 382 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 25, 2025), Docket No. 23-267 — U.S. Court of Federal Claims
• Abdo v. Commissioner, 162 T.C. No. 7 (Apr. 2, 2024) — opinion on the Tax Court site

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice. For advice specific to your situation, consult a qualified tax professional or attorney.