Somewhere in the IRS’s systems, a penalty is sitting on your 2022 tax account that may never have been legally valid. If you filed your federal return late that year and paid a late-filing or late-payment penalty, the agency’s own pandemic relief rules may entitle you to a full refund of that charge. But the clock is running out: under the three-year statute of limitations in IRC Section 6511, most individual filers must submit their refund claim by April 18, 2026. After that date, the money is gone, regardless of the merits.
The refund vehicle is Form 843, a one-page IRS document called the Claim for Refund and Request for Abatement. Filing it is straightforward, but most affected taxpayers do not know it exists.
How the COVID penalty gap developed
When the pandemic upended daily life starting in March 2020, the IRS invoked its disaster-relief authority under 26 U.S.C. Section 7508A to postpone filing and payment deadlines across multiple tax years. The implementing regulations at 26 C.F.R. Section 301.7508A-1 define how the agency sets postponement periods and which obligations are covered. Millions of taxpayers relied on those extended deadlines to file and pay.
The problem emerged when the IRS processed those returns. Its automated systems assessed failure-to-file penalties under IRC Section 6651(a)(1) and failure-to-pay penalties under IRC Section 6651(a)(2) against filers who had, in many cases, met the postponed deadlines. The system treated the original, pre-postponement due dates as controlling, even though the IRS’s own notices had moved them.
For businesses and tax-exempt organizations, the IRS eventually acknowledged the error. In August 2022, the agency announced automatic penalty relief for tax years 2019 and 2020 through IRS Notice 2022-36, covering roughly 4.7 million returns and issuing automatic refunds to entities that had already paid.
Individual taxpayers received no comparable automatic fix. The same statutory language that protected businesses applies to individuals; Section 7508A does not distinguish by filer type. But the IRS never built a systematic correction process for individual accounts. That means affected individuals must request relief themselves, one return at a time, using Form 843.
The legal basis for individual penalty refunds
The argument is grounded in the plain text of Section 7508A: when the IRS officially postpones a deadline, any return filed or payment made by the new deadline is treated as timely. A penalty for lateness should not attach to an action completed within the postponed window.
This reasoning has been tested in federal court. In Kwong v. United States (U.S. Court of Federal Claims, docket number 2023cv0267), an individual filer challenged penalties assessed on a return whose deadlines fell within the disaster postponement period. The case has not produced a binding appellate ruling, and its facts are specific to one taxpayer, but tax practitioners have pointed to its legal reasoning as consistent with the broader argument that individual filers deserve the same treatment the IRS gave to businesses under Notice 2022-36.
Among tax professionals, the underlying principle is widely accepted: if the statute moved your deadline and you met it, you should not owe a penalty. The dispute is not over the law. It is over the IRS’s failure to apply it automatically to individual accounts.
Who qualifies and who does not
Not every late-filed 2022 return supports a valid abatement claim. The threshold question is whether your original filing or payment deadline fell within a period the IRS officially postponed under its COVID disaster authority. If it did, and you completed the required action by the postponed deadline, you have a strong basis for requesting penalty relief through Form 843.
A few important caveats:
- Extended filers may have different deadlines. Taxpayers who requested an automatic extension to October 16, 2023, or who were in federally declared disaster areas or combat zones, may have a later statute-of-limitations expiration date. The April 18, 2026 cutoff applies to filers whose original due date was April 18, 2023, with no extension.
- Reasonable cause is a separate avenue. Even if your situation does not fit neatly within the disaster-postponement argument, you may still qualify for penalty abatement under the reasonable-cause exception in IRC Section 6651(a). Pandemic-related hardships such as illness, caregiving disruptions, or inability to access records can support a reasonable-cause claim on the same Form 843.
- Filing Form 843 does not trigger an audit. The form is a refund request, not an amended return. It does not reopen your tax liability or invite additional scrutiny of your reported income.
How to file Form 843 before the deadline
The process is simpler than most people expect.
Step 1: Check your IRS account. Log in to the IRS online account portal and pull up your 2022 tax year transcript. Look for assessed penalties labeled as failure-to-file (Section 6651(a)(1)) or failure-to-pay (Section 6651(a)(2)). If penalties appear and have not already been reversed, you likely have a claim worth pursuing.
Step 2: Gather your documentation. Collect the IRS notice showing the penalty assessment, your proof of filing date (e-file confirmation or certified mail receipt), and any payment confirmations. These records help the IRS verify your claim and can speed up processing.
Step 3: Complete Form 843. Enter the tax year (2022), the type of penalty, and the dollar amount you want refunded or abated. In the explanation section, reference the COVID-19 disaster postponement period and Section 7508A. State that your original due date fell within the covered window and that your return or payment was completed by the postponed deadline. If you are also arguing reasonable cause, describe the specific circumstances that prevented timely filing.
Step 4: Mail it with a postmark record. Form 843 cannot be e-filed. Sign it and send it to the IRS address listed in the form’s instructions for your state and tax type. Given the April 18, 2026 deadline, mailing by early April at the latest is wise. Use certified mail with a return receipt so you have proof of your postmark date.
To put the potential dollars in context: the failure-to-file penalty alone can reach 25% of the unpaid tax balance, accruing at 5% per month up to five months. A taxpayer who owed $6,000 on a 2022 return and filed five months late could have been assessed a $1,500 penalty. If that penalty was charged despite the taxpayer filing within the postponed deadline, the full $1,500 is recoverable.
What the IRS has not disclosed
As of mid-2026, several important questions remain unanswered. The IRS has not published a figure for how many individual taxpayers were incorrectly penalized on 2022 returns, nor has it disclosed the total dollar value of potential refunds. The scale of the problem is likely large: the 4.7 million returns covered by Notice 2022-36 included only business and tax-exempt filers across 2019 and 2020, and the universe of affected individual filers across all pandemic tax years is almost certainly broader. But the agency has not confirmed a specific count.
Processing timelines for Form 843 claims are also unclear. The IRS has not released approval rates or average turnaround times for COVID-era abatement requests. The National Taxpayer Advocate’s most recent annual reports have documented persistent processing backlogs across the agency, so filers should expect a wait measured in months rather than weeks.
There is no public indication that the IRS plans to extend the statute of limitations or create a new automatic relief program for individuals before the April 18, 2026 cutoff.
Where to get help if you are unsure
If you are not certain whether your 2022 penalties fall within the disaster-postponement window, a consultation with a tax professional can clarify your situation quickly. Enrolled agents, CPAs, and tax attorneys all handle penalty abatement cases, and many offer initial consultations at low or no cost. Given that the potential recovery can run into hundreds or thousands of dollars, the investment is often worth it.
The IRS also operates the Taxpayer Advocate Service, a free resource for filers who are struggling to resolve penalty disputes on their own. TAS can intervene directly with the IRS on your behalf if your case meets its criteria for assistance.
The steps are concrete: check your 2022 IRS account, look for penalties, and if they are there, file Form 843 before April 18, 2026. The form is one page. The potential refund could be significant. And once the statute of limitations closes, no amount of legal argument will reopen it.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
