levy is creating an economic hardship do the financial condition of an individual taxpayer although the statute itself sets forth no limitation on the term taxpayer rest his current position is that only individual taxpayers may suffer financial condition of an individual taxpayer if the satisfaction of that levy in whole or in part will cause the individual to be unable to pay his or her reasonable basic living expenses but the government believes that only  individual taxpayers qualify for the economic hardship or leave provisions that are set forth within stance to even if an all source levy is present on a corporation which prevents it from having access to any of its funding now am i getting an echo or someone else i don't want to interrupt someone else well council yes it may not be the term tax payer that's the focus here but the term economic hardship and what it means in this context and how a business could have to suffer economic hardship in this context was what how would you define economic hardship for business i would define economic hardship as being unable to pay othe essential business property and any private pay insurance or private paid coming from the actual residents of the nursing home so i would define the economic hardship in a very general on broadway which is what i believe congress intended ever there is a loudly applied to a corporation they're going to have economic hardship and therefore should be released i don't think it would be in every situation around or i think just like an individual taxpayer the i conspire scribed necessary factors to demonstrate what economic hardship would be in order to qualify under the statute so it wouldn't just be an automatic release we think that just like an individual taxpayer has the opportunity or taxpayers should also be able to show the iris but if the levee is not released even partially that it would prevent them from meeting those needs in such a way that would cause them or some foreclosure or beach or receivership which i did not believe was the inherent intent behind the statute congress afford levy on the corporation there's going to be a hardship in the statute doesn't say what degree that hardship should be in accra the sections us not which is what the i r s has the authority under the statute promulgated the regulations as to what would constitute economic hardship for both corporate and individual taxpayers but when you look at the regulation they decided to restrict the stance in a way the congress didn't ok let's get back to as a probably in a negative cash flow situation yes they're i think in those areas they're in an economic hardship yes and then and in that situation if the i r s comes in and put some all sorts levy on what if whatever available funding they do have a situation where they want to be able to pay any of the current taxes they owed their payroll utilities insurance and all the other operational excessive especially in the case of a nursing home which still has to care for its residents even though it has these other allegations  governments obviously set the rates on how they get reimbursed so a lot of times there are two ways in that in receiving all of your account receivables and then you have to make a determination as to what gets paid if they still have a duty to the nursing home residents to be able to because if you have if you're caring for let's say one hundred nursing home residents and they have to be fed and you have to provide the appropriate health care to them and having certified people on staff having doctors i think you have a duty to those people  paid you're taking care of the of the residents and that involves various expenses under the tax code i think in terms of the priority of creditors taxes come before everything and yet now you're saying you don't have to pay your taxes as long as you have these other expenses that have to be paid your operational necessities i think  referred to but your number one operational necessity in this is i think reflected in the tax code is paying your taxes isn't it i want to disagree with your honor's interpretation i think certainly every corporation has a duty to pay the taxes that are required by law but what i think is happening here though is that the i r s has substituted its own judgment for that of congress including every structure that the statute itself does not contain so they made a choice to economic hardship is being financed by the government if they don't pay their taxes is knitter i think that's true to a certain extent but when you want the code section for example when  agreements with people so that they can pay taxes maybe not all of it but it reduces the government's cost in collecting the taxes and those are the considerations that go into that sort of compromise that's not a compromise because of the dire straits of the taxpayers so much as this is the best way for the government to get the most money the least expense isn't it let's true your honor but they do look at the reasonable collection potential of the corporation so if a corporation doesn't have the economic assets and say it's a one million dollars and they settle it for two hundred thousand dollars you're right that the government's trying to get as much money and immediately but they're still offering corporations the opportunity to settle those taxes for less so the same of the employment tax scheme somehow forded by just giving a corporation the opportunity to demonstrate economic hardship see if they do qualify for that leave i think the i r s when they were getting offers and compromise the regulations they included factors under which a corporation could suffer a hardship decided at the last minute not to actually adopt it but the i r s is certainly capable of determining what would constitute economic hardship and we don't feel that i mean that's a non defined term within the code and we don't believe that those provisions are necessarily inescapably ambiguous that would cause the court to resort to legislative history to look at a statute much section seven thousand one hundred and twenty two because when you look at what the tax court they went to  st dibs at the money and you're saying as long as the other operational expenses aren't paid and be paid then the tax payers is suffering economic hardship and shouldn't have to pay that's all that's in the opposite direction from the entire rest of the code in these circumstances but we're certainly not advocating that taxation to be paid or they should have a release from them recently saying they should have the opportunity to demonstrate economic parcher really and if they can't demonstrat that was an amendment to the statute passed by subsequent subsequent congress in order to correct a timing issue with respect to an individual taxpayers wages so when the tax court looked at whether or not the term taxpayer was ambiguous  on easy to say that the whole words in a bit us we have to go to step two to determine whether or not the regulation was a permissible instruction stature were stirring up there is nothing in that amendment that in any way shape or form overrides the general definition of  statute the amendment when you're dealing with an individual's wages but that was the sole purpose there look at the individual there are reasonable basic living expenses but only with respect to a levy on their wages and didn't say that court my name is kathleen lyon and i represent the commissioner seminal nursing home asks this court to rule that it is eligible for economic hardship relief from a proposed iris levy to collect unpaid employment taxes including trust fund taxes that payer it does well your honor it statutory terms including tax fair cannot be read in isolation and you have to we think that congress is intent here seen in the surrounding language in the provision that the canons of statutory construction are clear that you have to look at a specific specific context in which taxpayer is used in the broader context of the statute as a whole and it's with  believe that the analysis begins and ends with the definition of tax payer it didn't in six thousand three hundred and forty three and we don't think that it does in six thousand three hundred and forty three a one d because congress didn't define an economic hardship or provide guidance on what it means and it left it to the secretary to draw those lines and we think that congress very likely meant economic hardship in the sense that contemporary dictionaries use that term we've laid out a fairly extensive analysis there of pages thirty four to forty two of our  brief and dictionary definitions overwhelmingly point to hardship as a subjective human experience and certainly businesses can have financial difficulties in payments paying their debts and if they don't pay their debts they can go into bankruptcy we don't ordinarily refer to that as refining corporation certainly a business given that president in our statement that the natural interpretation of that food convenience i can't remember the exact language may have it andy but it was certainly applied to a company not an individual and it was not  said in general the notion economic hardship is not something you think of as applied to companies we applied to a company that over three years ago and gave a natural notion we rejected the notion that that required long term that there had to be a threat to there if i'm resolved term viability it certainly wasn't the sort of deprivation you think the term is limited to and it wasn't limited to individuals so i think to the extent that your argument is  that even if we as we've said in our brief that while the dictionary different definitions we think overwhelmingly the contemporaneous dictionary definitions and i don't know what that was when the e p a statute was and acted what it might favors the interpretation and doesn't lead to a result the congress is highly unlikely to have intended and i think you've addressed some of the questions earlier have addressed some of of the results of congress is highly unlikely to ha intended first off particularly in seminal is the perfect example here when you have these employment taxes and you have a company that is making a self executed loan to itself at the expense of the public st the public fisc you know centrally becomes a bank and the i r s as the loan officer we have also pointed out in our brief there are many cases showing that the government can't be made an unwilling partner in a floundering business and it would be highly unlikely for the for the government to for congress to have maybe the government be in a position to subsidize failing businesses and in particular we think it's highly unlikely given the statutory scheme and given the priority that tax collection gets that the government would have that congress would have subordinated the government's position to choose rd party creditors and i think if congress had intended such a dramatic departure from the collection scheme i think it would have explained it permissible permissible construction of the statute for the reasons i've essentially just noted that we think it is consistent for the secretary to have defined the regulation as applying to individuals partly because it's consistent with the dictionary definitions of the hardship or the weight of those definitions it avoids subsidising failing businesses it avoids creating these perverse incentives for how businesses may arrange their financial affairs in order to avoid tax collection it avoids up an employment tax statutory intended or has her in the statute generally to refer to only individuals i don't think that that's the best focus here i don't think you have to provision it's the reference to wages and salaries which can only be experienced by individuals that establishes the reach of that provision and of course we know what wages and salaries mean we don't know what economic hardship means because congress didn't define it and left it to the secretary we we think that it is it just underscores the fact that that terms can be read in isolation it's you have to look at the whole provision and the whole provision i think makes it clear that you're dealing with with individuals examine whether it's a personal permissible construction and we think that it plainly is for the reasons that i've already stated i want to address a point if i may i only have a few minutes left which opposing counsel brought up earlier installment agreements and offer some compromise in other words we understand some of the saying it doesn't matter whether a business would be incentivized to not pay over trust on taxes because the i r s can always collect your installment agreements offers a compromise we want to point out that installment agreements offers a compromise are voluntary the i r s cannot force anyone to propose one or to enter one as a perverse preserving irises ability collect to collect even aggressively is is of vital importance importance here and congress left it to the secretary to engage in line drawing here and it did we think it was plainly plainly permissible to do so and finally i would point out the choice here is not between economic hardship relief from levy or no possibility of relief at all again there are other options for resolving a business tax issues whether it's stallman agreements or office and compromise as a practical matter businesses do raise their financial issues in a c although we think that appeals can't be required to deny a levy based on the financials can do of a business in the balancing test is where it can deny a level where intrusiveness would outweigh the government's need to efficiently collect taxes so middle had an opportunity to do this remand when the to act reacted appeals to look at the balancing test again in the light of seminoles updated financial situation and some all declined to participate or to show what's financials and do you have no time left so thank you both counselor submitted and counselor excuse