Laughlin v. U.S. I.R.S.

• Decision Date: 25 September 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-1598,89-1598
• Citation: 912 F.2d 197
• Parties: -5435, 59 USLW 2198, 90-2 USTC P 50,459, 23 Collier Bankr.Cas.2d 736, 20 Bankr.Ct.Dec. 1564, Bankr. L. Rep. P 73,599 Kathleen A. LAUGHLIN, Trustee, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, Appellee (Two Cases). Kathleen A. LAUGHLIN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 197

912 F.2d 197

66 A.F.T.R.2d 90-5435, 59 USLW 2198, 90-2

USTC P 50,459,

23 Collier Bankr.Cas.2d 736, 20 Bankr.Ct.Dec. 1564,

Bankr. L. Rep. P 73,599

Kathleen A. LAUGHLIN, Trustee, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, Appellee (Two Cases).

Kathleen A. LAUGHLIN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, Appellee.

No. 89-1598.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Feb. 12, 1990.

Decided Aug. 15, 1990.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Sept. 25, 1990.

Howard N. Kaplan, Omaha, Neb., for appellant.

Joel A. Rabinovitz, Washington, D.C., for appellee.

Before WOLLMAN and MAGILL, Circuit Judges, and BOGUE, ^* Senior District Judge.

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Kathleen A. Laughlin appeals from the district court's ¹ order denying her motion to enforce the automatic stay of 11 U.S.C. Sec. 362 against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which issued a notice of levy to Laughlin in her capacity as trustee of Chapter 13 bankruptcy estates for the District of Nebraska. We affirm.

I.

Seeking funds from which to satisfy the Elskens' tax liability, the IRS served Laughlin with a notice of levy upon funds payable to Michael J. Elsken and Deanne Elsken from Chapter 13 estates Laughlin administers. Because the levy did not refer to any specific bankruptcy actions, Laughlin made a manual search through her records of the approximately 1,700 cases she was administering at the time. She determined that the levy applied to three separate bankruptcy actions in which debtors owed attorney fees to Michael Elsken.

Two of the estates in which Laughlin found funds subject to the levy had confirmed plans providing for payments to Michael Elsken. The IRS later agreed that the levy would not be effective against the estate of the third debtor, for which there was not yet a confirmed plan.

Laughlin filed a motion in the bankruptcy court to enforce the Bankruptcy Code's automatic stay. The bankruptcy court ² denied Laughlin's motion. The district court affirmed the denial. Laughlin appeals, asking that we find that the IRS willfully violated the automatic stay and that we order reimbursement from the government for costs and attorney's fees.

II.

The district court held that the IRS levy did not violate the automatic stay of section 362 and upheld the bankruptcy court's ruling that 26 U.S.C. Sec. 7421(a), the Anti-Injunction Act of the Internal Revenue Code, barred the entry of an order requiring the IRS to provide more detail in the notice of levy or to file an adversary proceeding before filing a notice of levy. ³

We agree with the bankruptcy court and the district court that the IRS has not violated the automatic stay in this case. ⁴ The debtors, estates, and creditors--those entities the automatic stay is designed to protect--are unaffected by the levy. In re MacDonald, 755 F.2d 715, 717 (9th Cir.1985) (the "automatic stay gives the bankruptcy court an opportunity to harmonize the interests of both debtor and creditors while preserving the debtor's assets for repayment"); see also H & H Beverage Distrib. v. Department of Revenue of Pa., 850 F.2d 165, 166 (3rd Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 994, 109 S.Ct. 560, 102 L.Ed.2d 586 (1988); Hunt v. Bankers Trust Co., 799 F.2d 1060, 1069 (5th Cir.1986); In re Stringer, 847 F.2d 549, 551 (9th Cir.1988); Pursiful v. Eakin, 814 F.2d 1501, 1504 (10th Cir.1987); 2 L. King, Collier on Bankruptcy p 362.01, at 362-7 (15th ed. 1990). The IRS is simply levying on money each bankruptcy estate owes Michael Elsken, as determined and approved for payment by the bankruptcy court. The IRS levy no more interfered with the purposes of the automatic stay under these circumstances than it would have had the notice of levy been served upon the bank in which the estate checks were deposited had they been sent to and received by the Elskens in due course. It is really the administrative burden created by the notice of levy to which the trustee objects. As indicated below, we, like the bankruptcy court, do not minimize the extent of that burden.

We turn, then, to the question whether the Anti-Injunction Act bars Laughlin's claim for relief from the levy.

Prior to the enactment of the current Bankruptcy Code, two circuits affirmed the right of the IRS to serve a notice of levy on a bankruptcy trustee in circumstances similar to Laughlin's. In re Quakertown Shopping Center, Inc., 366 F.2d 95 (3d Cir.1966), concerned a notice of levy the IRS served on a debtor's receiver to attach a taxpayer-creditor's claim against the bankruptcy estate. The court found the levy valid and enforceable, reasoning that the United States became, in effect, the involuntary assignee of the creditor and that the levy did not invade the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court or interfere with the administration of the estate. Id. at 98. See also In re Meter Maid Indus., Inc., 462 F.2d 436 (5th Cir.1972) (adopting the reasoning of Quakertown on similar facts).

In Bostwick v. United States, 521 F.2d 741 (8th Cir.1975), debtors who had already been discharged in bankruptcy sought to enjoin the IRS from collecting back taxes until the dischargeability of the tax debts was determined by the courts. The government had not filed proofs of claim during the course of the bankruptcy proceedings. We held that the Anti-Injunction Act did not bar the bankruptcy court from entering an order enjoining the government from collecting the taxes. We concluded that Congress' enactment of a complete scheme governing bankruptcy proceedings overrode the general policy represented by the Anti-Injunction Act. We based our conclusion on our belief that

the overriding policy of the Bankruptcy Act is the rehabilitation of the debtor and we are convinced that the Bankruptcy Court must have the power to enjoin the assessment and/or collection of taxes in order to protect its jurisdiction, administer the bankrupt's estate in an orderly and efficient manner, and fulfill the ultimate policy of the Bankruptcy Act.

Id. at 744.

In A to Z Welding & Mfg. Co., Inc. v. United States, 803 F.2d 932 (8th Cir.1986), we held that the Anti-Injunction Act prohibited a suit by a corporation seeking to enjoin the IRS from collecting a penalty against its officers and shareholders for taxes withheld from the corporation's employees' wages but not paid over to the government. We found Bostwick inapposite because the tax sought to be collected had been assessed against officers and shareholders of the corporation in their personal capacity and not from the debtor in bankruptcy, as in Bostwick. 803 F.2d at 933. On similar facts, other courts of appeals have also held that the Bankruptcy Code does not override the Anti-Injunction Act. In re American Bicycle Assoc., 895 F.2d 1277 (9th Cir.1990); In Matter of LaSalle Rolling Mills, Inc., 832 F.2d 390 (7th Cir.1987); United States v. Huckabee Auto Co., 783 F.2d 1546 (11th Cir.1986).

Finding no violation of the automatic stay, we conclude that the Anti-Injunction Act controls the outcome of this case. Congress has not provided a bankruptcy exception to the Anti-Injunction Act that would authorize a court to enjoin IRS collection efforts in these circumstances. Nor does Laughlin's case fit into the narrow confines of Bostwick. This is not a situation in which the debtors thought themselves discharged of a debt for which the IRS had not filed a proof of claim during the bankruptcy proceedings. The IRS is seeking only to collect directly from the trustee that which the debtors owe the taxpayer-creditor according to the terms and conditions of confirmed Chapter 13 plans. Thus, our concerns in Bostwick about rehabilitation of the debtor and the orderly administration of the bankruptcy laws do not come into play. Moreover, because Laughlin does not dispute the validity of the tax, this case does not fit within the exception to the Anti-Injunction Act recognized by the Supreme Court in South Carolina v. Regan, 465 U.S. 367, 104 S.Ct. 1107, 79 L.Ed.2d 372 (1984).

As the bankruptcy court recognized, the administrative burden of future levy notices that do not identify the property or even the debtors to which the levy applies is not a fanciful fear on Laughlin's part. Although it appears to us that the IRS could easily spare trustees the possibly enormous burden of sifting through hundreds or even thousands of cases, we have no basis here for dictating to the IRS the methods by which it may collect taxes. It is for Congress to impose upon the IRS the requirement of specifying the estates upon which the notice of levy is to apply or to create a bankruptcy exception to the Anti-Injunction Act.

Having found that the notice of levy did not violate the automatic stay provisions of section 362, we deny Laughlin's claim for costs and attorney's fees.

The district court's judgment is affirmed.

MAGILL, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

In holding that the IRS did not violate the automatic stay of 11 U.S.C. Sec. 362, the majority disregards "the fundamental canon that statutory interpretation begins with the language of the statute itself." Pennsylvania Dep't of Pub. Welfare v. Davenport, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 2126, 2130, 109 L.Ed.2d 588 (1990). Section 362(a) provides that a bankruptcy petition "operates as a stay, applicable to all entities, of ... (3) any act to obtain possession of property of the estate or of property from the estate or to exercise control over property of the estate." ⁵ The meaning of this language is plain: if the funds on which the IRS levied are property of the estate, then the IRS violated the automatic stay. Thus, as both the bankruptcy and district courts recognized, the critical issue in this case is whether funds held by a Chapter 13 trustee for distribution to creditors under a confirmed plan constitute property of the estate. The majority declines to even consider this issue, reasoning that the precise terms Congress used in Sec. 362(a) are irrelevant because, in its...