The Tax Court Is Paying Rent With Renovation Money. It Runs Out in 2031.

Taxpayers can contest an IRS determination in a few federal forums, but the Tax Court's own budget documents describe it as the one where a taxpayer can "do so without prepaying any portion of the disputed taxes" — everywhere else, a taxpayer pays the disputed amount first and sues for a refund.▸ For two fiscal years running, the court says in its own FY2027 Congressional Budget Justification, submitted February 6, 2026, Congress's annual appropriation has been "insufficient to fund the recurring costs to the Court of fulfilling its statutory mandate (e.g., salaries and benefits of judicial officers and Court personnel, travel, rent, security, equipment, software, etc.)." To cover the gap, the court says it obligated $8.3 million in fiscal 2025 and plans another $10 million in fiscal 2026 from a $153 million fund Congress handed it under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — money appropriated for one-time modernization projects, not for keeping the doors open. That fund is finite: it expires September 30, 2031.

Congress gave the Tax Court $55 million for fiscal 2026 — an appropriation the court's own budget documents call short of what it costs to run the place for a year.▸ The court's real fiscal 2026 obligations run $66.7 million, and the difference is covered almost entirely by one line: $10 million pulled from the Inflation Reduction Act allotment, a fund Congress appropriated in 2022 for facilities upgrades, IT modernization, and courtroom renovations — not for salaries. Of the $10.9 million in IRA money the court plans to obligate in fiscal 2026, 91% of it goes to plugging the operating shortfall; only $946,000 goes to the modernization work the fund was built for.

Public Law 117-169 gave the Tax Court $153 million, available until September 30, 2031, for one-time investments: digitizing court files, updating electrical and audio-visual systems in its 74 trial-session cities, a records-management overhaul.▸ The court's own budget documents say plainly that it "originally intended to use IRA funds exclusively for one-time projects" and pay recurring costs from its annual appropriation — and that in fiscal 2025 and 2026, that plan broke. The fiscal 2027 request asks for $65 million, up 18.2% from the $55 million Congress actually enacted for fiscal 2026, specifically so the court can stop drawing IRA money to make payroll. Whether Congress grants it is Congress's decision, not the court's.

The reserve itself is draining.▸ It began fiscal 2025 with $142.9 million of the original $153 million award still on hand; by the planned end of fiscal 2026 that falls to $63.3 million — a fund meant to last through 2031 already less than half full, and still being asked to cover recurring bills its authors didn't intend it to pay.

The court's caseload spiked to 35,297 filings in fiscal 2021 — a pandemic-era wave of IRS notices — and the court has since closed more cases than it opened in four of the following five years to work the backlog down, landing at 18,549 filed against 20,961 closed in fiscal 2025.▸ Of those 18,549 cases, the court's own count says taxpayers were self-represented in approximately 78% of them, with no attorney. The court maintains a directory of 131 Low Income Taxpayer Clinics and bar-sponsored volunteer programs in 16 cities to help them — but the formal mechanism for even partial legal help, a Limited Entry of Appearance, was filed just 79 times in fiscal 2025: roughly four-tenths of one percent of that year's cases.

The bench serving them is also short-handed at the margin.▸ By statute the court "shall be composed of 19" presidentially appointed active judges; as of the February 2026 budget submission, one seat sits vacant, and the court's own published judges roster — checked directly — still lists 18 active judges, not 19. The court fills the gap with senior judges: 14 of them serving on or subject to recall from retirement, plus 5 more retired due to disability or otherwise, on top of 5 special trial judges (four active, one senior) who handle the court's smaller cases. Each new active-judge confirmation, the court notes, carries roughly $750,000 in added chambers costs — a bill the same squeezed appropriation has to absorb along with the rent.

Figures are drawn entirely from the United States Tax Court's FY2027 Congressional Budget Justification, submitted February 6, 2026, and from the court's own published judges roster, checked directly. Dollar figures from the budget justification are reported in thousands in the source and converted to whole dollars here. FY2025 figures are actuals; FY2026 figures are the court's planning estimates; FY2027 figures are the court's own funding request, not an enacted appropriation.