Income taxes discharge in bankruptcy under rules that are mechanical and computable - and surrounded by traps that reward checking the dates before filing anything anywhere. Here are the rules as they actually operate.
The Three Tests
At the bankruptcy filing date, income tax generally discharges when all three are true: the return was due more than three years earlier, counting extensions; the return was actually filed more than two years earlier; and the assessment is more than 240 days old. The clocks pause for tolling events - prior bankruptcies freeze them for the case plus a tail, pending offers in compromise toll the 240-day clock - so the computation runs on transcript dates plus tolling law, and its most useful output is a calendar date: dischargeable after next March. Filing strategy frequently consists of waiting for a computed date.
The Three Traps
The SFR lockout: in several circuits, a return filed after the IRS assessed that year via substitute for return may never count as a return for discharge - permanently barring the year from bankruptcy regardless of time, which makes filing before the IRS does a discharge-preservation move. The lien survival: discharge erases personal liability, but a lien notice recorded pre-petition survives against property owned at filing - lien timing belongs in the plan. The survivors: trust fund payroll taxes, the trust fund recovery penalty, and fraud liabilities pass through every chapter untouched, which is why the bankrupt-the-company strategy for payroll debt is always half a plan.
The Comparison and the Chapters
The discharge analysis runs beside the administrative exits, never instead of them: a Chapter 7 four months out sometimes erases what an offer would settle over a year at greater cost; Chapter 13 structures even non-dischargeable debts on terms beating the IRS's; and sometimes the statute expiration or a partial-pay agreement wins without a courthouse. Florida's exemption scheme adds a favorable layer for homestead-heavy filers. The analysis pairs tax counsel with bankruptcy counsel and runs on one set of transcripts - send them and the dates arrive within the week.