Back Taxes - Lawyer Filed an AP vs US

[gmk]

In our BK7 filing we included a few years of back Fed taxes. To the best of my knowledge we meet the rules for discharge 3yr - 2 yr - 240 days and no fraud or evasion. Recently, our attorney has filed an adversarial complaint against the government to determine discharge-ability with a trial/hearing date a few weeks after our expected discharge date.

My questions are: Assuming that our returns do meet the above qualification criteria does the government aggressively defend themselves or is this a formality type of thing. Do they usually show up if there is nothing to argue? Or do they always show up?

Anyone else gone through this?

Are we required to attend the hearing?

Will this affect the discharge date?

When we briefly discussed this with our attorney some time back he was very non-plussed about it and said he had a few more forms to file, no big deal. I didn't realize that we would actually be filing an adversarial complaint!

I'll contact my attorney in the next week or so but any insight? Thanks

[tdawg]

In our BK7 filing we included a few years of back Fed taxes. To the best of my knowledge we meet the rules for discharge 3yr - 2 yr - 240 days and no fraud or evasion. Recently, our attorney has filed an adversarial complaint against the government to determine discharge-ability with a trial/hearing date a few weeks after our expected discharge date.

My questions are: Assuming that our returns do meet the above qualification criteria does the government aggressively defend themselves or is this a formality type of thing. Do they usually show up if there is nothing to argue? Or do they always show up?

Anyone else gone through this?

Are we required to attend the hearing?

Will this affect the discharge date?

When we briefly discussed this with our attorney some time back he was very non-plussed about it and said he had a few more forms to file, no big deal. I didn't realize that we would actually be filing an adversarial complaint!

I'll contact my attorney in the next week or so but any insight? Thanks

I had back taxes included in my discharge. My lawyer never filed an adversarial complaint. Here's what I did. I went into the IRS's taxpayer advocate office about 2 weeks after we filed and had them look up my accounts. They said there was a hold on the years (because of my bk filing). That made me feel a little better. Then, about 3 weeks after my discharge, I went back into the IRS's office and had them look up my account again. They said (and showed me) that all of the years I filed against showed $0 balances. That made me feel much much better. :-) I have no idea why your attorney would need to file an adversarial complaint unless the IRS was trying to dispute them or something.

Good luck!

[HHM]

Unless there is a special issue, it is generally not required to file an AP to have taxes discharged that meet the guidelines. It is up to the IRS to object to dischargeability, especially for the fraud aspect of it. Generally, your attorney should contact the local IRS insolvency office and see if they have a problem with discharge, if they don't, they will appropriately note the file and that will be the end of it.

On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with what your attorney is doing, bringing the AP will avoid any uncertainty after the fact as to whether the taxes were discharged, but at the same time, it is a step that is usually not necessary.