Pansier v. Internal Revenue Service (In re Pansier)

451 F. App'x 593
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedDecember 19, 2011
DocketNo. 11-2192
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 451 F. App'x 593 (Pansier v. Internal Revenue Service (In re Pansier)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pansier v. Internal Revenue Service (In re Pansier), 451 F. App'x 593 (7th Cir. 2011).

Opinion

ORDER

For over a decade, Gary and Joan Pansier have wrangled with the Internal Revenue Service and the state of Wisconsin over unpaid income taxes. See, e.g., In re Pansier, 417 Fed.Appx. 565 (7th Cir.2011); United States v. Pansier, 576 F.3d 726 (7th Cir.2009); Pansier v. United States, No. 09-2450, ECF No. 22 (Bankr.E.D.Wis. Sept. 28, 2010); Pansier v. United States, 225 B.R. 657 (E.D.Wis.1998). In this appeal, the Pansiers contend that the bankruptcy court erred in concluding that then-federal income tax liability for the years 1995 through 2006 was not discharged by their bankruptcy. We affirm the judgment.

The current dispute dates to late 2008 when the Pansiers petitioned for relief under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. The bankruptcy court granted a general discharge and then, in June 2009, closed the case. But as is typical under Chapter 7, the bankruptcy judge did not specify which debts had been discharged. See 11 U.S.C. § 727(b). The IRS and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue took the position that the Pansiers’ tax debts were exempt from discharge, and thus in August 2009 the bankruptcy court reopened the case on the debtors’ motion to resolve that question. The Pansiers then filed parallel adversary complaints against the IRS1 and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, and in both actions they sought a declaration that their unpaid taxes had been discharged. See Fed. R. BankrP. 4007(a), (b). The state taxes were the subject of a previous appeal. In re Pansier, 417 Fed.Appx. 565 (7th Cir.2011). The case before us now arises from federal [595]*595income taxes assessed for the years 1995 through 2006.

The adversary complaint against the IRS was not filed until November 2009. Before that, Gary Pansier had been pursuing a petition he filed in the United States Tax Court in 2006 to enjoin the IRS from levying against his income. The IRS countered that the Tax Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, but before that argument finally prevailed in August 2009, see Pansier v. C.I.R., No. 15849-06 (T.C. Aug. 11, 2009), the IRS had mistakenly asserted that the Pansiers did not have an income tax liability arising from the years 1999 through 2006. That slip would soon become a linchpin of the Pansier’s adversary action in the bankruptcy court.

In bankruptcy court the Pansiers and the IRS filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The IRS relied upon 11 U.S.C. § 528(a)(1)(B), which exempts from discharge a tax “with respect to which a return, if required,” was never filed or, if filed late, did not precede the bankruptcy petition by at least two years. According to the IRS, the Pansiers did not file income tax returns for 1995 through 2006 until after they had petitioned for bankruptcy. Those returns were “required,” according to an IRS employee, because the Pansiers had received sufficient income to incur a tax liability in each year from 1995 through 2006. The receipt of substantial income is confirmed by the Pansiers’ untimely returns, in which they themselves report unpaid income tax liability for each year.

The Pansiers responded with a two-part argument, the first applying to the years 1995 though 1998, and the second applying to 1999 through 2006. For the earlier group of years, the Pansiers asserted that, in fact, they had filed tax returns more than two years before petitioning for bankruptcy. As evidence they pointed to a certified IRS transcript of account, which, they say, documents the receipt of returns for 1995 and 1996 on April 22, 1997, and for 1997 and 1998 on August 28,1999. The IRS agreed that returns were deemed received on those two dates, although not returns prepared or submitted by the Pan-siers. These returns, according to the IRS, were “substitute returns” authorized to be entered electronically by the IRS for taxpayers who do not file themselves. See 26 U.S.C. § 6020(b). The IRS produced computer printouts of the substitute returns along with affidavits from IRS employees attesting that the April 1997 and August 1999 dates correspond to the preparation of substitute returns, not the receipt of returns from the Pansiers. The bankruptcy court invited the Pansiers to submit their own affidavit attesting that they had filed the returns consistent with the dates on the IRS transcript, but the Pansiers ultimately declined that opportunity. The passage of time, they explained, had made it impossible for them to remember when they filed returns for these years.

For the years 1999 through 2006, the Pansiers did not claim to have filed timely income tax returns. Instead they argued that, because the IRS had said in the Tax Court that no income tax was owed for those years, the agency was barred by the doctrine of judicial estoppel from taking a contrary position in the bankruptcy court. In response the IRS argued that judicial estoppel could not apply because the Tax Court had not relied on the agency’s misstatement, and because the misstatement resulted from a good-faith mistake.

The bankruptcy court granted summary judgment for the IRS. The judge concluded that the IRS had introduced undisputed evidence that the Pansiers were required to file income tax returns for all of the years in question but had not done so [596]*596more than two years before they petitioned for bankruptcy. And as to the misstatements made by the IRS in the Tax Court, the bankruptcy judge declined to apply judicial estoppel. The judge reasoned that the Tax Court had not relied upon (or even mentioned) the misstatement in concluding that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. And, the bankruptcy judge continued, it would not be appropriate to apply judicial estoppel even if the misstatement arguably could have influenced the Tax Court because the misstatement was plainly an unintended blunder. The Pansiers unsuccessfully appealed this decision to the district court. See 28 U.S.C. § 158(a).

In this court, the Pansiers argue that the bankruptcy judge made two errors. Concerning the years 1995 through 1998, they contend that the existence of the IRS transcript of account is enough to show a disputed issue of fact about whether they filed returns for those years more than two years before petitioning for bankruptcy. And as for the years 1999 through 2006, the Pansiers argue that the bankruptcy court erred by not estopping the IRS from claiming they have a tax liability. We review the bankruptcy court’s decision under the same standard as the district court. See Kovacs v. United States, 614 F.3d 666, 672 (7th Cir.2010); Miller v. LaSalle Bank Nat’l Assoc., 595 F.3d 782, 785 (7th Cir.2010).

For the years 1995 through 1998, the evidence is undisputed that the Pansi-ers were obligated to file income tax returns but failed to do so until after the two-year deadline.

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