On August 17, 2018, I wrote about the bankruptcy case of Clothier v. IRS which held that a debtor’s prior bankruptcy did not suspend the time period for the IRS to retain priority status. I will come back to that case in a postscript to this post. Clothier involved the issue of whether a taxpayer’s prior bankruptcy case tolled the time for the IRS to claim priority status. The case of Tenholder v. United States, No. 3-17-cv-01310 (S.D. Ill. 2018) looks at the same issue but examines a different basis for tolling – a Collection Due Process (CDP) request. The district court, affirming the decision of the bankruptcy court, concludes that taxpayers’ CDP request did toll the time period for claiming priority status.
Debtors filed a chapter 7 petition on December 30, 2015. At issue in this discharge litigation is tax year 2011. Debtors requested an extension of time to file their 2011 return making the return due date October 15, 2012. That extended due date falls more than three years before the date of their bankruptcy petition. As such, the priority claim provision of BC 507(a)(8)(A)(i) did not apply nor did the other two rules that allow the IRS to file a priority claim for assessments within 240 days of the bankruptcy petition and for taxes not yet assessed but still assessable. So, the IRS sought to hold open the three years from the extended due date for filing by resorting to the flush language added to the end of 507(a)(8) in the 2005 legislative changes.
That language provides:
An otherwise applicable time period specified in this paragraph shall be suspended for any period during which a governmental unit is prohibited under applicable nonbankruptcy law from collecting a tax as a result of a request by the debtor for a hearing and an appeal of any collection action taken or proposed against the debtor, plus 90 days; plus any time during which the stay of proceedings was in effect in a prior case under this title or during which collection was precluded by the existence of 1 or more confirmed plans under this title, plus 90 days.
Applying this language suspends the three year period for 207 days in the debtors’ case because that was the time between their CDP request on July 22, 2013, and the end of the CDP hearing on February 14, 2014. In addition to the 207 days, the flush language also tacks on an additional 90 days. Adding 297 days to the end of the period three years from the extended due date of October 15, 2015, yields a date of August 7, 2016. Since debtors filed their bankruptcy petition prior to August 7, 2016 the IRS filed its claim for 2011 as a priority claim. Based on its claim of priority status for 2011, the IRS argued that the debt was excepted from discharge by BC 523(a)(1)(A).
Debtors disagreed with the application of the flush language because the language of the paragraph says taxes for “which a governmental unit is prohibited under applicable non-bankruptcy law from collecting a tax.” Debtors acknowledge that the IRS could not levy while their CDP case was pending but argued that the IRS could offset or could bring a collection suit while the CDP case was pending and, since it was not totally prohibited from collecting, the flush language does not apply to suspend the priority period.
Debtors were not the first to make this argument. At least three prior cases addressed the same issue but the district court did its own analysis of the provision. It found IRC 6330, the CDP provision, was a non-bankruptcy law prohibiting collection. The court disagreed with debtors’ argument that the language provided a clear statement requiring broad prohibition of any type of collection and agreed with the argument of the IRS that the statute does not say all collection and it clearly covers the collection prevented by a CDP hearing. In holding for the IRS the court found the language of the statute ambiguous but the legislative history clear in its intent to cover the CDP situation. As a result it found that debtors filed within the period during which the IRS could claim priority status. This decision aligns with the prior decisions interpreting the language of this paragraph.
The harsh result here points to the care that a debtor must take in choosing the timing of a bankruptcy petition where discharge of a tax for a specific year serves as the goal of the filing of the bankruptcy petition. Had the debtor realized the impact of the filing of the CDP request, and assuming no other factors drove the timing of the filing of the petition, the debtor could have realized the discharge of this tax debt by simply waiting a little longer to file.
This brings us back to the Clothier case which raised a similar issue of timing but did not discuss the flush language of 507(a)(8) added in 2005. As I mentioned in the earlier post about Clothier, the Court’s decision essentially overturned the Supreme Court’s decision in Young v. United States, 519 U.S. 347 (1997).
Following the post, I received an email from Ken Weil in Seattle who specializes in bankruptcy and tax matters citing me to the hanging paragraph at the end of 507(a)(8). Ken’s cite to this part of 507 is perfect because in this hanging paragraph Congress codified the decision in the Young case. I am getting too rusty on bankruptcy and should have questioned in my post why the government did not vigorously argue this language.
Coincidentally, I had a conversation with someone familiar with the case who informed me that the case was argued by an assistant United States Attorney rather than a Department of Justice Tax Division attorney. The AUSA would not be as familiar with tax issues in bankruptcy and did not cite the court to the hanging paragraph. So, the judge missed it as well.
We have not yet confirmed that the IRS appealed the Clothier decision. I expect that it will and that the outcome of the decision will change. We will see.