## Facts

- Faye Anastasoff overpaid federal income tax for tax year 1993 on April 15, 1993.
- She mailed a refund claim on April 13, 1996; the IRS received it on April 16, 1996, more than three years after payment.
- The IRS denied the refund based on 26 U.S.C. § 6511(b), which limits refunds to amounts paid within the three years before a claim is filed.
- Anastasoff argued that the mailbox rule, 26 U.S.C. § 7502, should treat her claim as filed on the postmark date for purposes of § 6511(b)’s three-year lookback, even though the claim was timely under § 6511(a).
- The United States relied on an earlier unpublished Eighth Circuit decision rejecting materially similar arguments.
- Anastasoff contended that the unpublished decision could not bind the court because a local rule stated unpublished opinions were not precedent and generally should not be cited.

## Issues

1. Whether the mailbox rule in 26 U.S.C. § 7502 can be applied to expand the three-year refund limitation in 26 U.S.C. § 6511(b) when the refund claim is timely under § 6511(a).
2. Whether Article III permits a court of appeals to declare, by local rule, that its unpublished opinions have no precedential effect.
3. Whether a later panel must treat a prior unpublished circuit decision as binding precedent absent en banc or Supreme Court overruling.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit panel affirmed judgment for the United States, holding the refund was barred under the interaction of §§ 6511 and 7502.
- The panel treated the prior unpublished circuit decision as controlling and rejected the taxpayer’s statutory argument.
- The panel held the local rule purporting to strip unpublished opinions of precedential effect violated Article III because it authorized the court to disregard its own prior statements of law.
- On rehearing en banc, after the government paid the claim in full with statutory interest, the court dismissed the case as moot and vacated the panel opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Under § 6511(b), a timely administrative claim does not alone entitle a taxpayer to a refund; the amount refundable is limited to taxes paid within the statutory lookback period.
- Applying § 7502 to treat a claim as filed earlier for § 6511(b) purposes can conflict with § 6511(a)’s filing-time rules and may not rescue an otherwise barred refund.
- Article III’s “judicial power,” as understood by the panel, includes an obligation to follow prior decisions that declare rules of law in resolving cases; a court may overrule precedent only through accepted mechanisms (e.g., en banc reconsideration or higher-court review).
- A court may choose not to publish an opinion, but (under the panel’s constitutional analysis) it may not deny that decision precedential effect through a local rule.

## Conclusion

The panel affirmed denial of a tax refund and concluded that Article III forbids a federal appellate court from treating its own unpublished decisions as nonprecedential, reasoning that judicial power requires consistent application of previously declared rules of law; the en banc court later vacated the panel opinion as moot after the government paid the refund.


Anastasoff v. United States, 223 F.3d 898 (8th Cir. 2000)