Law Commons^™

Bankruptcy Law—Rethinking The Discharge Of Late Filed Taxes In Consumer Bankruptcy, Justin H. Dion, Barbara Curatolo

Faculty Scholarship

The 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code, Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) was enacted in order to improve bankruptcy law. However, BAPCPA has made the issue of whether late-filed taxes are dischargeable even murkier than before the amendments. After BAPCPA, some courts continued to analyze claims as they had before the amendment. Others used a “one-day-late rule” that prevented late-filed taxes from being dischargeable—even if the taxes were filed only one day late. This Article suggests a different approach. It argues that the legislature intended tax debt associated with late-filed income tax returns be dischargeable if the …

Are We A Nation Of Tax Cheaters? New Econometric Evidence On Tax Compliance, Jeffrey A. Dubin, Michael J. Graetz, Louis L. Wilde

Faculty Scholarship

In 1982, then Commissioner of Internal Revenue Roscoe Egger reported to Congress that legal sector noncompliance with the Federal Income Tax statutes generated an "income tax gap" of $81 billion in 1981, up from $29 billion in 1973. He further projected a gap of $120 billion for 1985 (U.S. Congress, 1982). Perceptions of accelerating noncompliance inspired a crisis mentality within the Internal Revenue Service, Congress, and the tax bar.

The IRS responded in part by funding a major independent study of tax noncompliance via the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Bar Foundation initiated an investigation of its own …