Tax Returns Of Individuals Filing Bankruptcy

A person filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy must provide the trustee a copy of his most recent Federal Income Tax Return at least seven days prior to the creditors meeting. This requirement is contained in Section 521(e) of the United States Bankruptcy Code. If the debtor fails to meet this requirement the bankruptcy will be dismissed. A question arises though of what happens, if the debtor did not file a tax return for the most recent year, because his income was to low to require him to file. The debtor clearly has no obligation to provide such a return to the trustee, because he was not required to file it under the tax law. Some trustees have taken the position in this case however; that the Bankruptcy Code would then require the debtor to supply a copy of the last tax return he was required to file. If this is only a year or two back, I would advise the debtor to comply with the request on the basic principal that it is usually preferable to keep your bankruptcy trustee happy. If the debtor has not been required to file a return for a number of years though, it creates a greater problem, because the debtor probably has not saved his last tax return. Nor would he be likely to be able to obtain a copy from the IRS. In that case I think one can fall back on the part of the law that says the case will not be dismissed for failure to provide the tax return, since the failure is beyond his control.