the Taxpayer

17-48

On January 27, 2016, the Department sent a denial letter to the Taxpayer for a claim for refund. As the Taxpayer is deceased, the denial letter was mailed to the address of the Taxpayer’s Estate’s Personal Representative and successor in interest who had made the original claim for refund on January 20, 2016. A protest was filed with the Department on March 16, 2017 which was denied for being untimely. The personal representative filed a second protest to this denial letter on June 13, 2017. The documents submitted by the Taxpayer’s personal representative showed that the Taxpayer died on October 13, 2006. The personal representative starting inquiring about a refund for the 2006 taxable year in January of 2016. The matter at interest in these protests are was the Taxpayer entitled to a refund for the claim for refund submitted in January of 2016 for the 2006 taxable year. The Hearing Officer determined that the original return submitted in 2007 for the 2006 taxable year would have been a valid claim for refund. It appears that the Department took no action on this original claim but per section 7-1-26 NMSA 1978 and after 210 days the Department could no longer act on a claim for refund. The Hearing Officer determined that the legislature has established a statute of limitations on refund claims so that the state will not be held liable for late-asserted claims allowing the ledger book to be closed after a finite time. As the application for refund in 2016 was past the four-year statute of limitations, the claim was denied by the Department. Although, the Taxpayer established that it was entitled to the claimed refund submitted through the 2006 PIT-1 tax return in 2007, the Taxpayer did not timely re-submit a request for payment of the refund within three years of the end of the calendar year the payment would have been due per Section 7-1-26 NMSA 1978. For the foregoing reasons, the Taxpayer’s protest is denied.