Can You Include Your Taxes in Your Georgia Bankruptcy?

Many times people on income taxes before they file a bankruptcy case. The question becomes whether the income tax can be wiped out in the bankruptcy. That’s a complicated question, and it depends on a very complicated, actually, fact pattern. The basic rules are this, generally speaking, income taxes cannot be wiped out in a bankruptcy case. There are limited circumstances in which they can. Under the current law, the income tax return must have been filed on time. If you were late on filing, the income tax return on time you’re kicked out, you’re not going to be able to wipe off those income taxes in the bankruptcy case.
The second requirement is that the income tax has to be more than three years old before you follow the bankruptcy case. Let’s take an example. Let’s say you filed this bankruptcy case in 2016, but you want to try to discharge 2014 income taxes. Well, that’s less than three years. You cannot wipe out those income taxes either. Now, let’s assume that you filed your tax return on time and the income tax was doing owing for more than three years before you file your bankruptcy petition.
The final rule here is that, if the IRS assessed any income tax or penalties are made, any adjustments to that properly filed and timely filed income tax return, if they did that within eight months, 240 days of you filing the present case, then you cannot wipe out those income taxes. For these reasons, it is very important that you have a skilled, competent, experienced bankruptcy lawyer look at the particular documentation.
Simply put, sometimes the bankruptcy lawyer just has to advise you to wait a little extra time until those time frames expire, so that when you file your bankruptcy case you can wipe out your tax debt. If you have any questions about these issues, call my office at 770-792-1000 and I’ll try to help you wipe out your income taxes.