Appeal statements are only considered at a hearing if copies of the statements have been sent to the relevant case participants. The hearing statement deadline determines whether or not a submitted statement is considered during the scheduled hearing. The reason for this deadline is to ensure that there is enough time for the case participants to receive and review a copy of the statement.
This deadline is defined by a time constraint that indicates the minimum length of time before the scheduled hearing date, that a hearing statement must be received, in order for it to be considered during a hearing. To determine the hearing statement deadline, the system calculates the period of time between the receipt date for a statement and the scheduled hearing date. The system then subtracts the value of the time constraint from this calculation. If the value is greater than or equal to zero, a copy of the hearing statement is sent to the case participants and the statement will be considered at the hearing. For example, if the hearing statement time constraint is set to 7 days, then the receipt date on the hearing statement must be at least 7 days prior to the scheduled hearing date.
To ensure that all case participants receive statements in a timely manner, a task for submitting these statements is assigned to the appeal case owner.