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Preslar V. Commissioner: Debt-Discharge Income And Its Rationale, Chad J. Pomeroy

Faculty Articles

In Preslar v. Commissioner, the Tenth Circuit examined the “disputed debt” exception and concluded that the result was at odds with similar holdings from the Third Circuit. The Third and Tenth Circuits interpret the underlying logic of debt discharge income differently. The Third Circuit invokes the disputed-debt exception when the original debt is either unenforceable or unliquidated, while the Tenth Circuit invokes the exception only when the original amount is unliquidated.

The Tenth Circuit stated that the exception “rests on the premise that if a taxpayer disputes the original amount of a debt . . ., a subsequent settlement of …