Nicholas v. United States (384 U.S. 678)/Dissent White

by Byron White

United States Supreme Court

384 U.S. 678

Nicholas  v.  United States (384 U.S. 678)

 Argued: April 19, 1966. --- Decided: June 13, 1966

Mr. Justice WHITE, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice FORTAS join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I agree with all but Part II of the Court's opinion and dissent as to that part.

The issue is whether a penalty for the trustee's failure to file withholding, social security and cabaret tax returns is payable out of the assets of the estate. The Court holds that it is, even though the acts giving rise to tax liability occurred during the operation of the business by the debtor in possession prior to the trustee's assumption of office. Although the Court concedes that the trustee is not obligated to pay the tax except at the time and within the limits provided by the Bankruptcy Act, he must nevertheless undertake the sometimes difficult task of assembling all the information necessary to file the tax returns that the debtor in possession would have had to file had bankruptcy not occurred. For several reasons I do not agree.

1. The bankruptcy laws do not favor saddling an estate with penalties. Section 57j states that 'Debts owing to the United States or to any State or any subdivision thereof as a penalty or forfeiture shall not be allowed * * *,' Bankruptcy Act, § 57j, as amended, 11 U.S.C. § 93(j) (1964 ed.), and this Court has held the section applicable to a federal tax claim even where it is secured by a lien. Simonson v. Granquist, 369 U.S. 38, 82 S.Ct. 537, 7 L.Ed.2d 557. That case reaffirmed the 'broad aim of the Act to provide for the conservation of the estates of insolvents to the end that there may be as equitable a distribution of assets as is consistent with the type of claims involved. * * * Enforcement of penalties against the estates of bankrupts, however, would serve not to punish the delinquent taxpayers, but rather their entirely innocent creditors.' Id., at 40-41, 82 S.Ct. at 539. It is true that § 57j deals with penalties claimed against the debtor and here the penalty is claimed to arise from the trustee's alleged default. But the general policy against diluting the claims of creditors by charging penalties against the estate-very similar to the policy against allowing interest during bankruptcy which the Court rightly makes much of in this case-requires at the very least weighty and persuasive reasons for imposing upon the estate and the other creditors a penalty for the trustee's failure to file a return relating to the prebankruptcy operations of the business. If the tax return date in this case had fallen on the day before bankruptcy, § 57j would bar the penalty. I see little sense in a rule which would allow it if the return date is the day after bankruptcy.

2. The Court rests the trustee's obligation to file a return solely on § 6011(a) of the Internal Revenue Code-'any person made liable for any tax imposed by this title, or for the collection thereof, shall make a return * * *.' Section 6151, putting the matter the other way, imposes an obligation to pay the tax on those who file a return. The Court says it is conceded the trustee is liable to pay the taxes incurred by the debtor in possession and therefore the trustee must file a return. But the Court obviously does not mean the trustee is 'liable' to pay in the sense that he must pay claims against the estate. For in the typical bankruptcy case where no Chapter XI proceeding has intervened-the failure of an individual proprietorship for example the trustee is not obligated to, indeed is not authorized to, file the individual's return even though federal taxes are entitled to a Class 4 priority. I.T. 3959, 1949-1 Cum.Bull. 90. The salient fact is that the trustee's general obligation to pay claims including tax claims, takes effect only when and if they are allowed and distribution is ordered. Any claimed liability to pay a tax at any earlier time gives way to the priority provisions of § 64a, and mere liability to pay claims is not the type of liability envisaged by § 6011(a). If it were, the bankruptcy trustee in the ordinary proceeding not following an abortive Chapter XI arrangement could not escape the rule announced today.

Accordingly, the reliance of the Court is not on the trustee's general liability to pay claims but on the supposed 'crucial fact' that the taxes here in question were incurred during proceedings under the Bankruptcy Act with the trustee being successor in interest to the debtor in possession, who also acted as an officer of the court. But had the debtor in possession continued to operate the business, his liability to file a return and to pay the taxes here in question would have been clear under 28 U.S.C. § 960 (1964 ed.), and he could have been subjected to penalties for any default, Boteler v. Ingels, 308 U.S. 57, 60 S.Ct. 29, 84 L.Ed. 78. With respect to the trustee, however, the Court disclaims any holding that his liability arises under § 960, see ante, 693, n. 28, at 694, and it seems also to disavow any implication that the trustee could be penalized for failure to pay these taxes at the time required by the Code, as distinguished from failure to file the returns, ante, n. 29 and accompanying text. Such disclaimers are entirely appropriate. For the truth of the matter is that the successor liability of the trustee who succeeds a debtor in possession is no different from that of the trustee who succeeds the ordinary bankrupt, except that taxes accruing during the arrangement are distinguished from prearrangement taxes in that they are classified as administrative expenses and thus are escalated from a Class 4 to a Class 1 priority, although relegated to an inferior position within Class 1 and hence payable only if there are sufficient assets to pay prior expenses. In either instance the trustee's duty to pay is regulated by § 64a and is a general obligation to pay claims and administrative expenses not constituting the kind of liability envisaged by § 6011(a). In sum, there is no basis in law for treating the debtor in possession and the trustee as one person, and the Court's error is in merging together two distinct periods of the estate for purposes of assessing responsibility for filing returns when it quite carefully, and correctly, separated them for purposes of determining liability to pay interest.

3. There might be some grounds for rejecting the general policy against allowing penalties against bankrupt estates if the filing of the return by the trustee performed some critical function or was at least something more than an empty formality. Section 58e of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C. § 94(e) (1964 ed.), expressly provides for notice to the Internal Revenue Service of the first meeting of creditors in all bankruptcy proceedings and for notices to all scheduled creditors at important stages of the proceeding. See also 26 U.S.C. § 6036 (1964 ed.) (notice of qualification of trustee). There is, therefore, little chance that the Government would not have the opportunity, for lack of notice, to file its claim as it is required to do in an ordinary case. In the matter before us now, the tax claims were clearly scheduled, the United States had ample notice and it had no trouble whatsoever in filing the statement of administrative expense to take advantage of the priority accorded administrative items arising in the prior Chapter XI proceeding.

4. Nor is it so clear that to impose on the trustee the obligation of filing returns which the debtor in possession would have filed had he not been adjudicated a bankrupt imposes only an insubstantial burden. Trustees are normally strangers to the estate, have not participated in making or filing the schedules of assets and liabilities and, although they may be creditors, at the outset know little or nothing about the affairs of the bankrupt. They normally do not employ accountants, many times do not have attorneys and more often than not do not forthwith undertake the work and effort necessary to file a tax return. Such a filing is a serious undertaking with possible repercussions and it is not something which an officer of the court can afford lightly to discharge. If the United States claims an amount different from that scheduled, the trustee or his attorney may well have to delve into the facts and give serious consideration to the matter. But I would not require a trustee at the very outset of his duties to determine at his peril whether there are tax returns of the debtor to be filed and to undertake to file them. It would, of course, be impossible to do so on short notice; and if the return date is within a few days after the trustee's appointment, the court's rule would have untoward results. Absent some showing of a special function to be served by the filing of the return, the wooden application of § 6011(a) needlessly proliferates the duties of the ordinary bankruptcy trustee.

5. Boteler v. Ingels, 308 U.S. 57, 60 S.Ct. 29, 84 L.Ed. 78, does not rule this case. There the Court found an obligation on the trustee to pay license taxes on vehicles used in his own liquidating operations. Given this obligation arising out of his own activities, his failure to pay justified the imposition of a penalty and its payment from the estate. Section 57j was limited to proscribing penalties arising from the bankrupt's own defaults. That case, however, does not tell us whether the trustee was liable either to pay the tax or to file the return in the circumstances of this case. It does not follow from the trustee's obligation to pay license fees on vehicles used in his own operations that he is likewise obligated to pay a tax and file a return with respect to the debtor's prior business operations. And even if one admits the obligation to file the return, which I do not, the fact that the return relates to prebankruptcy matters, not to the trustee's operations, brings this case much closer to those in which § 57j was clearly intended to apply.

Notes