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Update on Splitting Refunds in Bankruptcy Cases

Posted on Jan. 25, 2017

In May of 2014, I wrote a post describing the way that bankruptcy courts approach splitting refunds in the circumstance in which one spouse goes into bankruptcy the other does not and then the couple files a joint return which generates a refund.  That post has, in a surprise to me, been one of the most popular posts in terms of the number of people who have accessed it.  Last month, another bankruptcy court opined on the issue while coming at the issue from a slightly different position than in the case from the prior post.  The recent case gives me a chance to update the post and describe bankruptcy procedure regarding the automatic stay, but also to bring up the filing season issue of injured spouse.

I recently wrote on the filing season issue of superseding returns.  I hope to write soon on another filing season issue updating another popular prior post regarding offset bypass refunds.

As a prelude to the discussion of the problem of splitting refunds in bankruptcy cases, a quick reminder of injured spouse rules will assist those facing the situation as filing season approaches.  I wrote about the injured spouse provisions in September of 2016 in the context of discussing the statute of limitations for making an injured spouse request.  In that post I noted that if a taxpayer knows at the time of filing a joint return that their spouse owes the IRS but the taxpayer does not owe the IRS, the IRS has created a form to file with the return to alert the IRS to the desire of the spouse with no liability to have their portion of the refund actually refunded rather than offset:

When someone believes they qualify for injured spouse status, they should attach a Form 8379 to their tax return. Of course, a spouse may not know that their partner has a debt which will cause an offset of refund on the joint return and may not know that they should proactively file the Form 8379 to avoid the problem.

Unlike the innocent spouse provisions which apply when the IRS determines an additional liability on a joint return, the injured spouse provisions apply when one of the spouses already owes the IRS a liability.  When a couple knows that one partner owes the IRS a liability (or any other liability subject to the 6402 offset provisions such as student loans, child custody, state tax, etc) and the couple desires to file a joint return nonetheless, usually because of the tax benefit of joint return status, then the couple should attach the Form 8379 to the return.  If the spouse who does not owe the IRS (or the other offset entities) had no knowledge of their spouse’s debt to the IRS (or the other offset entities) at the time of filing the joint return, then he or she can file the Form 8379 when they learn of the problem which will generally occur not too long after the filing of the return because of the failure to receive the anticipated refund.  The outside time period for making the request, is discussed in the prior post.

While the IRS has issued rulings and a form making the path to injured spouse relief from the IRS relatively straightforward, the path takes on a different form if the fight over the refund occurs outside of the IRS.  Outside of the IRS, the fight over the refund usually takes place in a bankruptcy court or a domestic relations court.  The IRS rules regarding the splitting of the refund do not bind these courts but do provide context for deciding how to do so.

In the recent case of In re Nevins No. 15-10003 (Bankr. N.H. December 23, 2016), the application of the rules came up in a fight between the debtor and the IRS, rather than the debtor and the debtor’s spouse or the debtor and the bankruptcy trustee, in the context of a potential violation of the automatic stay.  Mr. Nevins filed a voluntary chapter 13 petition on January 4, 2015.  The court confirmed his plan on March 18, 2015, a normal time period between filing and confirmation of the plan.  The plan provided for payment of the IRS claim under terms that varied depending on the different types of claims held by the IRS.  In a twist on the injured spouse situation, Mrs. Nevins, who did not join her husband in filing bankruptcy, did also owe the taxes.  So, the Nevins case does not involve an injured spouse claim although the analysis applied here could also apply in an injured spouse context.

Married couples can make an election when filing bankruptcy to file a joint bankruptcy or to have just one spouse file bankruptcy.  Like the tax code, the bankruptcy code does not dictate the filing of a joint bankruptcy petition just because of marriage.  If one spouse files bankruptcy, the automatic stay of bankruptcy code section 362 applies to that spouse but not necessarily to the other spouse.  Bankruptcy code section 1301 does create a stay that can cover the non-filing spouse in chapter 13 cases; however, this stay only applies to consumer debts and the definition of consumer debt does not include taxes.

So, when Mr. Nevins filed bankruptcy and Mrs. Nevins did not, she remained exposed to the full panoply of collection weapons available to the IRS while he fell under the shield of the bankruptcy code.  In this case, the issue of offset involves not only the shield of the bankruptcy code but also the ultimate impact of discharge.  Most of the liabilities owed by Mr. Nevins fell into the general unsecured claim category.  He owed slightly over $40,000 but the IRS claim and the chapter 13 plan classified about $32,000 of that debt as general unsecured debt.  General unsecured debt is the worst type of debt a creditor can hold.  In Mr. Nevins’ plan he proposed to pay about 2% this debt.  This means that over the five year life of his plan he would pay the IRS about $640.00 and the balance of the debt would go away upon completion of the plan together with all of the interest and penalties on the debt.  For Mrs. Nevins, however, the full amount of the debt continued to exist and continued to accrue interest and, possibly, penalties.

This situation provides the IRS with an incentive to take the joint refund and apply it to Mrs. Nevins’ debt.  The automatic stay prevented the IRS from applying it to his debt since it must take payment through the plan on his debt.  The IRS calculated how much of the $1,293.00 refund each party should receive.  It determined that using its formula for allocation of refunds Mrs. Nevins should receive the entire refund and so it offset the entire refund in partial settlement of her debt.  By doing so, it collected in one action more than his five year plan would pay on this debt.  Mr. Nevins objected, arguing that the offset of the refund violated the automatic stay because it acted as a taking of property of the estate during the period of the stay.  The IRS countered that its actions did not violate the stay since none of the refund belonged to Mr. Nevins and nothing prevented the IRS from collecting on Mrs. Nevins’ liability.

The bankruptcy court faced a situation in which it needed to decide how it should calculate the refund in order to know if the taking of the refund violated the stay.  After noting the absence of controlling precedent in its jurisdiction, the court went through the same type of analysis the Lee court had done in the case previously blogged.  It also came to the same conclusion.  It rejected the 50/50 rule as too simplistic.  It rejected the income rule because it divides the refund based on “a factor which may have very little to do with actual contributions to the total tax obligations between spouses.”  It similarly rejected the withholding rule for similar reasons, noting that it may apply anyway in cases with no credits.

This led the court to the so-called separate filings rule adopted by the IRS in the revenue procedures.  The court notes that the majority of the courts are falling in line with the separate filings rule as it does.  The court described the rule as follows:

[The Separate Return Rule] allocates the refund based on each spouse’s hypothetical individual tax liability (hypothetical liability) had the spouses filed their tax returns as married parties filing separately. First, each spouse’s contribution to total payments is determined. Second, each spouse’s share of the joint tax liability is calculated based on the ratio of that spouse’s hypothetical liability to the sum of both spouses’ hypothetical liabilities. Each spouse owns that portion of the joint refund equal to the amount by which his or her contribution exceeds his or her share of the joint tax liability.

Because it lacked all of the facts necessary to rule on the precise disposition of the refund, it reserved the ruling on the outcome for another day.  The case caused the bankruptcy court to spend lots of energy over a $1,293 refund but a decision that sets precedent should the issue arise again.  If the IRS correctly calculated the refund based on the separate filings rule, the offset will stand.  If it did not, in whole or in part, some of the refund will come into the estate to satisfy the liability of Mr. Nevins under the plan and the IRS will potentially face damages for violation of the automatic stay.  I suspect any damages here would be small but it is a risk for the IRS anytime it takes money that arguably belongs to a bankruptcy estate.

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