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Collection from Retirement Accounts Part 3 – IRS Pushes Hard to Collect from F. Lee Bailey

Posted on Dec. 6, 2017

The bankruptcy court in Maine has granted relief from the automatic stay to allow the IRS to collect from Mr. Bailey’s pension accounts and Social Security benefits. While the IRS has the power to go after these accounts, its exercise of this power is governed by the issues discussed in the first two parts of this series. This is another defeat for Mr. Bailey in his efforts to protect his assets from the collection of federal taxes. I wrote previously about Mr. Bailey’s filing of the bankruptcy petition after suffering a massive loss in Tax Court.

In my earlier post regarding Mr. Bailey’s Tax Court loss, I speculated that Mr. Bailey might achieve relief in bankruptcy because his Tax Court case resulted in the imposition of an accuracy related penalty rather than the fraud penalty. That may still be true; however, the type of penalty does not stop the IRS from pursuing his assets and that is what it is doing with a vengeance. The bankruptcy court starts off the opinion stating “This bankruptcy case is another chapter in the decade long struggle between the Internal Revenue Service and Mr. Bailey over taxes.” We have not previously written much about the ability of the IRS to take a taxpayer’s social security payments and pension accounts. In addition to the first two posts in this series, I briefly touched on it recently in a post about military pensions where I discussed the federal payment levy program. Mr. Bailey’s case provides the opportunity to discuss how and when the IRS will take these assets as the policies apply to a specific individual rather than the group of individuals studied by TIGTA.

Based on the pursuit of these assets in the bankruptcy case, it seems clear that the IRS has determined that Mr. Bailey meets its definition of having committed flagrant conduct regarding the payment of his taxes. I discussed, and linked to, the IRS definition of flagrant conduct in the first post in this series. Cases where the IRS makes the determination that the taxpayer’s conduct is flagrant are the ones in which you see the IRS using its collection tools to their full effect. You should always seek to have your clients behave in a way that keeps them from fitting into the flagrant criteria or, should their conduct fall into the flagrant criteria, have them work quickly to mitigate that behavior because that type of behavior can cause the IRS to use some tools at its disposal that it might otherwise keep holstered.

The IRS will routinely go after 15% of a taxpayer’s social security payments through the federal payment levy program. As discussed in the post referenced above, the IRS has filters that it applies, thanks to the National Taxpayer Advocate, which exclude from the FPLP taxpayers whose income appears to be less than 250% of poverty. Section 6343 requires that the IRS not levy on taxpayers when the levy would put the taxpayer into a hardship situation and the filters the IRS applies in the FPLP program recognize that a high percentage of the individuals with income below 250% of poverty would end up in a hardship situation if the IRS levied on 15% of their Social Security payments. Of course, individuals whose income exceeds 250% of poverty can come into the IRS and show that the levy places them in hardship status if the IRS takes 15% through this program. For a detailed description of FPLP, see part two of this series.

The IRS need not limit itself to 15% of a taxpayer’s Social Security payments and it can levy on the entire amount of the payments if it chooses and if doing so does not place the taxpayer into hardship status. The opinion does not say whether the IRS plans to take only 15% of his Social Security payments or all of them; however, I would be surprised if it is not planning to take them all. When it seeks to take all of a taxpayer’s Social Security payments, the discussion in the last part of part two of this series becomes important. Mr. Bailey’s case is or was prior to bankruptcy in the hands of a revenue officer. Now that he is in bankruptcy, there will also be a bankruptcy specialist working on his case and probably an attorney at the Office of Chief Counsel. These individuals will apply the policy decisions set out in the manual in deciding to take his social security payments. The only legal impediment, aside from the automatic stay, is IRC 6343 setting out the hardship exception to levy.

As discussed previously, taking social security payments does not stop when the statute of limitations on collection ends. The IRS lien attaches to the taxpayer’s right to the stream of payments. Because the taxpayer’s right to this stream is fixed, once the IRS levies on the taxpayer’s interest in the social security payments the levy attaches to the right to receive all of the payments. So, as long as the taxpayer lives and the tax debt remains outstanding, the IRS can continue to receive the social security payments.

From part one of this series you know that the IRS can also levy on interests that taxpayers have in IRAs or pension plans. Even though ordinary creditors cannot reach assets in pension plans because of restrictions put in place by ERISA, these restrictions do not apply to the IRS. The IRS has policies that cause it to pause and obtain approvals and certain levels within the agency in order to levy on pension plans but the law places basically no restrictions that prevent the IRS from levying on these plans. A levy on a pension plan does not accelerate payment from the plan, but just like the levy on the taxpayer’s Social Security payments, the levy on the pension plan does attach to all of the rights the taxpayer has in the plan even if those rights include future and not present payments. I can only assume that prior to seeking to lift the stay in Mr. Bailey’s bankruptcy case, the IRS and its lawyers have already made a determination that neither the policies in the manual or the provisions in IRC 6343 prevent levies upon his pension plan or social security payments.

These IRS rights to pursue Social Security and pension plan payments play out in Mr Bailey’s bankruptcy case in the context of the automatic stay. The automatic stay comes into existence the moment a debtor files a bankruptcy case and works to prevent creditors from taking most assets of the debtor and of the estate. Bankruptcy code section 362(a) lists eight separate matters covered by the automatic stay; however, creditors can apply to the bankruptcy court to lift the automatic stay to permit the creditor to go after an asset otherwise protected by the stay. That is what the IRS has done in Mr. Bailey’s case. The bankruptcy court must then determine whether to lift the automatic stay to permit the IRS to collect from these assets while the bankruptcy case proceeds.

The concern of the IRS is that if Mr. Bailey receives these payments he might spend them. Each time he spends the payments from Social Security and the pension plan, he dissipates an asset on which the IRS has a lien interest and allowing him to receive the payments can only occur if he provides adequate protection to the IRS that its lien interest will not be harmed by his receipt of these payments. The bankruptcy court notes that he has the burden of proof on all issues connected with the motion of the IRS to lift the stay except on the issue of the equity in the Social Security and pension benefits. The IRS must show these assets have equity to which the federal tax lien has attached. Showing that equity exists in social security and pension plan payments is very simple.

By the time the IRS filed the motion to lift the automatic stay, Mr. Bailey had already received his chapter 7 discharge. The discharge lifted the automatic stay with respect to collection against him personally but the stay would continue with respect to assets of the bankruptcy estate until the estate was closed. The claims of the IRS survived the discharge in the chapter 7 case according to the bankruptcy court but the court does not provide specific information as to why they survived. It appears that even if some or all of the IRS claims were not excepted from discharge under bankruptcy code 523, the federal tax lien continued to attach to property belonging to Mr. Bailey which he kept after the chapter 7. After the conclusion of the chapter 7 case, Mr. Bailey filed a chapter 13 bankruptcy case. This maneuver is sometimes called a chapter 20.

The court finds that the IRS lien interest in the Social Security and pension payments is not adequately protected. Mr. Bailey said he needed to use the payments from these sources to fund his chapter 13 case and therefore he should get to keep them; however, that is exactly what the IRS fears since in using them to fund the plan he will spend the money from these plans and as he does so he destroys the lien interest of the IRS. The court points out that though it rules for the IRS in this summary type proceeding, Mr. Bailey can challenge the lien claim of the IRS in another proceeding should he seek to do so.

Mr. Bailey continues in his second bankruptcy case to do what many taxpayers before him have tried to do and use bankruptcy to wriggle free from federal tax debt. While it is possible to do that in certain circumstances, where the IRS has perfected its lien, debtor has assets to which the lien attaches, and the IRS is diligent in protecting its rights, the debtor will basically always lose. That does not mean the IRS will ultimately collect the $5 million dollars owed to it, but it does mean that while some or all of that debt remains due and owing, the IRS will continue to have open season on his assets including his Social Security and pension assets.

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