Court Opinion

ID: 9427196
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:00.183702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:05.387876
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice Stevens join,
dissenting.
The Government undoubtedly needs the revenues it receives from taxes, but great as that need may be I cannot join the Court’s thrice-twisted analysis of this particular statute to gratify it. The issue involved is the dischargeability in the corporate officer’s bankruptcy proceedings of taxes which the corporation is obligated to collect and pay over to the Government. In order to conclude that the corporate officer remains liable for this corporate obligation the Court turns to an unlikely source indeed: a 1966 amendment to the Bankruptcy Act, the only apparent purpose of which was to ameliorate the lot of at least some bankrupts, see infra, at 284-285, and n. 1. The Court then proceeds to slog its way to its illogical conclusion by reading a proviso obviously intended to limit dischargeability of the debts of a bankrupt so as to expand that category of debts. It then attempts to bolster this inexplicable interpretation by construing not the *283legislation which Congress enacted but a letter from the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury not unnaturally opposing any expansion of the dischargeability in bankruptcy of tax-related liabilities. The net result of this perverse approach to an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act is to make nondis-chargeable a liability which might well have been dischargeable before Congress stepped in to alleviate some of the hardships resulting from the making of the debts of a bankrupt non-dischargeable. In the background of this remarkable decision is § 6672 of the Internal Revenue Code which imposes a “penalty” upon a “person required to collect, truthfully account for, and pay over any tax imposed by this title.” 26 U. S. C. § 6672. Perhaps recognizing that this provision not only does not support its conclusion but seriously undermines it, the Court not surprisingly attempts to keep this provision in the background, addressing it only obliquely in a footnote where it summarily concludes, again in a remarkable tour de force of linguistics and logic, that a penalty must mean the same thing as a tax. The underlying debt in this case is that of a third person to pay the tax liability of another. I would want far clearer language than can be found in this statute to reach the conclusion that this liability is not dischargeable in the bankruptcy proceedings of that third person. I therefore dissent.
As an initial matter, since § 17a (1)(e) of the Bankruptcy Act is a proviso to § 17a (1), I would have thought that respondent would have to fall within the terms of the latter before it is even appropriate to consider whether he falls within the terms of the former. That is, § 17a first provides that a “discharge in bankruptcy shall release a bankrupt from all of his provable debts . . . .” 11 U. S. C. § 35 (a) (1976 ed.). It then excepts in §17a(1) through § 17a (8) eight different categories of debts which are not to be generally discharged, including “taxes which became legally due and owing by the bankrupt to the United States or to any State *284or any subdivision thereof within three years preceding bankruptcy.” 11 U. S. C. § 35 (a)(1) (1976 ed.). But this latter exception is itself in turn qualified in §17a(1)(e): “Provided, however, That a discharge in bankruptcy shall not release a bankrupt from any taxes . . . (e) which the bankrupt has collected or withheld from others as required by the laws of the United States or any State . . . but has not paid over . . ." 11 U.S.C. §35 (a)(1)(e) (1976 ed.). Thus, the normal reading of § 17a (1) should be to limit the nondis-chargeability of taxes to only those taxes legally due and owing by the bankrupt within the three years preceding bankruptcy, and the subsections of § 17a (1), including § 17a (1) (e), are to be read as an exception to that limitation. That exception provides that certain of the taxes described in § 17a (1) will not be discharged even if more than three years old; they will be nondischargeable without regard to time. Normal statutory construction would thus suggest that the first inquiry should be whether the liability in question is a tax legally due and owing by the bankrupt. Only if it is, would it become necessary to consider whether it is also a tax collected from others but not paid over.
That this is the correct reading of the statute is further buttressed by the legislative history. All the Committees which reported on the 1966 amendment to § 17a stressed that its central purpose was to enable at least some bankrupts to more nearly achieve the fresh start promised by the Bankruptcy Act. The Senate Committee on Finance, for example, in discussing the purpose of the proposed amendment, agreed with the Committee on the Judiciary “that present law, by denying any discharge of taxes, presents a substantial deterrent to one fundamental policy of the Bankruptcy Act — effective rehabilitation of the bankrupt.” S. Rep. No. 999, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 9 (1966). The Senate Committee went on to suggest slightly different methods from those advanced by the Judiciary Committee to achieve this goal, but its Report, like the *285others, leaves no doubt that the central purpose of the amendment was to make the Act more favorable to at least some bankrupts by limiting, with only a few specified exceptions, the nondischargeability of taxes to only those due for the prior three years.
This avowed legislative purpose only heightens the incongruity of the Court’s interpretation. The statute’s major purpose was to limit the nondischargeability of certain debts. And yet the Court holds today that the enactment of § 17a (1) (e) of that statute results in a nondischargeable debt without regard to whether that debt would have been totally nondischargeable before the passage of § 17a (1) (e) — that is, without the slightest attention to the question of whether it is a tax legally due and owing by the bankrupt within the meaning of § 17a (1). Thus, by passing a statute with a basically beneficent purpose, Congress has, according to the Court, not only made nondischargeable a liability which could potentially run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars but may have worsened, rather than bettered, the lot of the bankrupt.1
Finally, even if the language and the history of this statute were less clear, I would hesitate to depart from our long*286standing tradition of reading the Bankruptcy Act with an eye to its fundamental purpose — the rehabilitation of bankrupts. This has always led the Court, at least until today, to- construe narrowly any exceptions to the general discharge provisions. See, e. g., Gleason v. Thaw, 236 U. S. 558, 562 (1915). Admittedly § 17a is not “a compassionate section for debtors,” Bruning v. United States, 376 U. S. 358, 361 (1964), but even it must be read consistently with the doctrine of Gleason, supra. And I simply cannot see anything in this case which justifies the Court in departing from this tradition by straining to read into the statute an exception to the dischargeability provisions that was not clearly there before this amendment was passed, when the very purpose of the amendment which the Court is now construing was intended to be benevolent, at least from the bankrupt’s perspective.
Thus, the initial question which should have been addressed by the Court today is whether the amounts for which respondent is liable are “taxes legally due and owing by the bankrupt.” If they are not, then the further question of whether they are nondischargeable in their entirety under § 17a (1) (e) does not even arise. And I see nothing which persuades me that respondent’s liability is a “tax” legally due and owing by him. Neither the Government nor the Court points to any section of the Internal Revenue Code which makes a corporate employee liable for the taxes which the corporate employer is required to withhold from the employees’ paychecks. Sections 3102, 3402, or 3403 of the Internal Revenue Code certainly cannot be read to do this because by their unmistakable terms they impose a duty and liability only upon an “employer,” which a corporate employee, regardless of his rank within the corporate heirarchy, clearly is not.
Neither can § 6672 of the Internal Revenue Code serve the purpose. The liability imposed therein is specifically denominated a “penalty” and, absent any indication to the contrary, Congress is presumed to know the meaning of the words it uses, *287especially in highly complex and intricate statutory schemes. Indeed, in another letter sent by Assistant Secretary of Treasury Surrey to the Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary when that Committee was considering what eventually became § 17a (1), the following was specifically brought to the Committee’s attention:
“It is further believed by the Department that this bill is intended to discharge not only taxes but also penalties and interest. However, the bill makes reference only to taxes. In this connection, it is pertinent to point out that the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in the case of United States v. Mighell (C. A. 10th, 1959) 273 F. 2d 682, held that the word 'taxes’ in section 17 of the Bankruptcy Act (11 U. S. C. 35) does not include penalties and, by inference, interest. This apparent ambiguity could cause future litigation.” H. R. Rep. No. 687, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (1965).
And yet Congress did not modify § 17a (1) to include penalties. (I normally would not accord such passing references any weight, but the contrary practice seems today de rigueur. Ante, at 276-277.)
The history of § 6672 further bears out the notion that this always has been considered by Congress to be a "penalty,” and not a “tax.” For example, § 1004 of the War Revenue Act of 1917, an early predecessor of § 6672, provided that anyone who failed to make a return required by the Act or otherwise evaded any tax imposed by the Act or failed to collect and pay over any such tax was subject to “a penalty of double the tax evaded” in addition to other penalties, such as a $1,000 fine and imprisonment. 40 Stat. 325. Indeed, even today the subchapter heading under which § 6672 is found is titled “Assessable Penalties.”
Finally, the very existence of § 6672 bears testimony to the fact that there is no other section of federal law which makes the employee charged with the duty of collecting withholding *288taxes liable for those “taxes.” If there were such a section, § 6672 would be unnecessary. But it is the absence of such other provision which is dispositive of this case in my opinion.2
Instead of adopting the course which seems compelled by the structure and history of § 17a (1), however, the Court has chosen today a very different course. It does give a passing nod to the question of whether one might have to satisfy § 17a (1) before reaching § 17a (1) (e), but then dismisses it in rather desultory fashion in a footnote, noting only that “there is no reason to believe that any 'taxes’ made nondis-chargeable by the specific terms of §17a(1)(e) would not also be 'taxes’ as that word is used more generally in § 17a (1).” Ante, at 274 n. 8. The Court then goes on to interpret § 17a (1) in light of its limiting provision, § 17a (l)(e), instead of the other way around, a tour de force which compels admiration if not agreement. The critical, and indeed only, question for the Court then becomes whether respondent was “required” to collect and pay over the taxes. Finding that respondent was so required within the meaning of § 6672 of *289the IRC, the Court concludes he falls within the language of § 17a (1)(e) and that is the end of the matter.
The justifications for engaging in this unorthodox method of statutory construction are supposedly threefold, but are, in my opinion, far from satisfactory. First, the Court asserts that respondent’s liability is clearly encompassed within the plain terms of §17a(1)(e). But as indicated above such liability is encompassed within the terms of § 17a (1) (e) only if we ignore both the structure and purpose of the statute and proceed directly to § 17a (1)(e) without considering whether § 17a (1) is first satisfied.
The Court next relies on certain concerns expressed by the Treasury Department in a letter from the Assistant Secretary to the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. No doubt § 17a (1)(e) was included partially in response to that letter. But there is certainly nothing contained in that or any other provision to indicate that in adding § 17a (1) (e) Congress also intended to extend the concept of “taxes” in § 17a (1) to include the 100% penalty imposed by § 6672 or to encompass a corporate official’s responsibility (presumably under the corporate charter and state law) to collect and pay over federal withholding taxes. The Court emphasizes the phrase “and other persons” in the letter and then observes that “[t]here is no reason to believe that Congress did not intend to meet Treasury’s concerns in their entirety.” Ante, at 277. But emphasizing that phrase to the exclusion of the rest of the letter and the language and” structure of the statute places a weight upon that phrase which it cannot bear. Indeed, one could reach a much different conclusion by simply emphasizing other parts of the letter, such as the Department’s *290And even the Court recognizes that “the Department may not have focused on the specific question presented here . . . Ante, at 277. But most importantly, when interpreting the Bankruptcy Act in general, with its fundamental goal of rehabilitating bankrupts, and when interpreting this provision in particular, with its avowed purpose of furthering that basic goal of the Act, the Court is not entitled to make the presumption that it does. Rather, in the absence of a clear congressional expression to the contrary, there is every reason to believe that Congress did not intend to make nondischargeable in the employee’s bankruptcy proceedings a tax which is legally due and owing not by the bankrupt employee, but by the employer.
*289“concertn] with the inequity of granting a taxpayer a discharge of his liability for payment of trust fund taxes which he has collected from his employees . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) H. R. Rep. No. 372, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1963).
*290Finally, the Court emphasizes the fact that corporations often dissolve upon bankruptcy, thus making all corporate debts dischargeable in fact if not in form. Ante, at 278. Thus, reasons the Court, it is “most unlikely that the legislature intended § 17a (1) (e) to apply only to the corporation’s liability for unpaid withholding taxes.” Ibid. But clearly Congress, had it really intended to alleviate the problem to which the Court refers, could and hopefully would have used language more suited to the purpose. It is also incongruous to impute the intent to Congress to make this particular liability non-dischargeable as to the employee because the corporation will dissolve upon bankruptcy and yet to make no other corporate liability nondischargeable as to the employee even though dissolution of the corporation is just as likely in those cases. Such a statutory scheme not only seems at odds with the basic notion of what a corporation is all about, i. e., limited liability, but it also imposes a potentially crushing liability on corporate officials — a liability that is nondischargeable in its entirety and virtually in perpetuity. I certainly would not impute such an intent to Congress without a much clearer statutory directive.
While the lifelong liability which the Court imposes today *291falls on the shoulders of one who was the chief executive officer of a small family business, there is unfortunately nothing in the Court's reasoning which would prevent the same liability from surviving bankruptcy in the case of a comptroller, accountant, or bookkeeper who reaped none of the fruits of entrepreneurial success other than continued employment in the corporation, and in some cases possibly not even that, see n. 3, infra. So long as the Government in its zeal for the collection of the revenue may persuade a bankruptcy court that a corporate employee comes within the Court's Delphic construction of 26 U. S. C. § 6672 and 11 U. S. C. § 35 (a)(1) (e) (1976 ed.), such a person will be denied the “fresh start” which Congress clearly intended to enhance by the 1966 amendments to the Bankruptcy Act.3 Before the Government *292may randomly sweep such persons into a net whereby they are denied a discharge, not of their own tax liability but of a penalty imposed upon them for failure to pay over taxes which had been withheld by another, I would at least insist on a statute which seemed to point in that direction, rather than in the opposite one.

 The Court may well be correct in its observation that when Congress enacted these amendments it was “concerned about ‘discrimina! [ion] against the private individual or the unincorporated small businessman,’ H. R. Rep. No. 372, p. 2; S. Rep. No. 114, pp. 2-3,” ante, at 282 n. 16. And this observation in turn may support the conclusion that Congress, with an eye to reducing this supposed discrimination, intended to ameliorate the lot of only those individuals who operate through noncorporate entities. But I find absolutely nothing in the legislative history to indicate that Congress also intended to reduce this supposed discrimination between those who operate through corporations and those who do not by affirmatively worsening the lot of the former. Thus, I still search the Court’s opinion in vain for any justification for reading an amendment which was intended to limit the dischargeability of the debts of bankrupts, albeit only a limited class of bankrupts, so as to expand that category of debts with respect to another class of bankrupts.

 There are lower court cases to the contrary. See cases cited ante, at 273 n, 6. This line of authority can be traced to Botta v. Scanlon, 314 F. 2d 392 (CA2 1963), however, where the plaintiff sought an injunction against the Internal Revenue Service to restrain the collection of the penalty imposed under § 6672. The court denied the injunction on the authority of the Anti-Injunction Act, which provides in pertinent part: “[N]o suit for the purpose of restraining the , . . collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court . . . .” 26 U. S. C. § 7421 (a). The court held that this section applied to § 6672 penalties as well as taxes because § 6671 (a) of the Code provides: “[A]ny reference in this title to ‘tax’ imposed by this title shall be deemed also to refer to the penalties , . . provided by this subchapter.” 26 U. S. C. § 6671 (a), But while there is clear statutory authority for treating a § 6672 penalty as a tax for purposes of administering the Internal Revenue Code, there is no authority for treating such a penalty as-a tax for purposes of the Bankruptcy Act. Indeed, the fact that Congress clearly recognized the need to specify that a penalty was a tax for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code strongly suggests that its failure to so specify with respect to the Bankruptcy Act was not an inadvertent omission.

 The Court’s lack of concern for the potentially crushing liability it imposes on bankrupts is nowhere more evident than at 280 n. 13, ante, where the Court notes that “[n]o corporate officer, regardless of title, can be held liable under Internal Revenue Code § 6672 unless his position was sufficiently important that he was ‘required to collect, truthfully account for, and pay over’ withholding taxes and unless he ‘willfully fail[ed] ’ to meet one or more of these obligations.” While I certainly do not dispute that observation, it does absolutely nothing to allay my fear that this liability can be imposed on a variety of salaried corporate employees who enjoy none of the fruits of entrepreneurial success other than their continued employment. The Federal Reporter is replete with cases in which just such individuals have been held liable under § 6672. See, e. g., Adams v. United States, 504 F. 2d 73 (CA7 1974) (the court held that an employee of a lending institution, who had been placed in charge of a corporation to which the institution had loaned money, could be liable under § 6672 for failure to pay over withholding taxes collected from the corporation’s employees, regardless of the fact that he held no stock or other interest in the corporation); Mueller v. Nixon, 470 F. 2d 1348 (CA6 1972) (same); Turner v. United States, 423 F. 2d 448 (CA9 1970) (employee of a bank, who had been made an officer of a company as a condition of a loan made to the company, could be liable under § 6672 for failure to pay over withholding taxes collected from the company’s employees). Indeed, it appears to be agreed by the Courts of Appeals that a person need not be a shareholder to be held accountable as a responsible person under § 6672. See, *292e. g., Anderson v. United States, 561 F. 2d 162, 165 (CA8 1977); Hartman v. United States, 538 F. 2d 1336, 1340 (CA8 1976); Haffa v. United States, 516 F. 2d 931, 935-936 (CA7 1975).