The most expensive myth in tax is that bankruptcy never touches tax debt. Income taxes discharge in bankruptcy courts every day - under timing rules that are mechanical, computable from transcripts, and surrounded by traps that reward running the analysis before filing anything anywhere.
Compute the Three Clocks
At the bankruptcy filing date, income tax generally discharges when all three are true: the return was due more than three years ago, counting extensions; the return was actually filed more than two years ago; 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. Its most useful output is a calendar date: dischargeable after next March. Waiting for a computed date is a legitimate strategy when the date kills the debt.
Respect the Three Traps
The SFR lockout: in several circuits, a return filed after the IRS already assessed the year through a substitute for return may never count for discharge - permanently barring the year from bankruptcy, which makes filing before the IRS does a discharge-preservation move, not just a balance move. The lien survival: discharge erases personal liability, but a lien notice recorded before filing survives against property owned at the petition - lien timing belongs in the plan. The survivors: trust fund payroll taxes, the trust fund recovery penalty, and fraud liabilities ride through every chapter untouched.
Compare Before You Commit
The discharge analysis runs beside the other exits, never instead of them: sometimes a Chapter 7 four months out erases what an offer would settle over a year at greater cost; sometimes Chapter 13 structures even non-dischargeable debt 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. One set of transcripts runs the whole comparison, tax counsel pairing with bankruptcy counsel where filing fits. Send them over and you will have the dates this week.