Has anybody succeeded in getting the IRS to agree to a term longer than 5 years from petition date? I’d like to speak with that person to enhance my negotiating skills as I haven’t been able to get the IRS to budge.
— Giovanni Orantes, Esq.
Hello Giovanni:
When I was at IRS, it was pretty well understood that you couldn’t agree to this treatment. A quick explanation of the bureaucracy is in order here: Most attorneys representing the IRS in bankruptcy court are from IRS Counsel: they work for the Department of the Treasury. However, an executive order dating to Roosevelt says that only attorneys from the Justice Department may represent the IRS in federal courts except for Tax Court. The government gets around this by deputizing IRS Counsel attorneys as “Special Assistant US Attorneys,” (or SAUSAs) who report to Justice on those particular cases. SAUSAs generally spend about a quarter to half their time in bankruptcy court, the rest in Tax Court. To get special treatment on a chapter 11 payoff, then, you need to approach the SAUSA. That person needs to clear everything with a contact at the US Attorney’s Office (I used to have Bob Kwan review everything before he became a judge).
