Whether bankruptcy wipes out an income tax debt has almost nothing to do with hardship and everything to do with dates. Three clocks must all have run by the petition date, and because the clocks are computable in advance, the filing date becomes a strategic instrument. The difference between filing in March and filing in July can be the difference between erasing a debt and keeping it.
The Three Clocks
The return's due date, with extensions, must be more than three years before the bankruptcy filing. The return must have actually been filed more than two years before. And the assessment must be more than 240 days old. All three, simultaneously, measured against transcript dates - the due date with that extension you forgot you requested, the actual received date of the late return, the TC 150 or TC 300 assessment date.
Then the tolling overlay: a prior bankruptcy freezes the lookback clocks for its duration plus a tail, and a pending offer in compromise freezes the 240-day clock plus a tail. Stack a prior Chapter 13 and an old offer onto the timeline and the intuitive answer is often wrong by months in either direction.
The Waiting Game Pays
Run the computation and the answer frequently comes back 'not yet': dischargeable in February, in eight months, after the 240th day. Waiting is then a strategy with a known payoff - and the waiting period gets managed, because collection continues meanwhile. A hardship determination or modest agreement keeps the IRS quiet while the calendar does work no negotiation could.
Two traps to respect while waiting. A Notice of Federal Tax Lien recorded before filing survives the discharge against property you owned at the petition - lien timing belongs in the plan. And for SFR years, several circuits hold that a return filed after IRS assessment never qualifies the debt for discharge at all, no matter how long you wait. Late filers should file yesterday.
Run the Dates First
Every bankruptcy-versus-IRS decision starts with a transcript-based discharge analysis: which years pass, which fail, which pass on a knowable future date. I run these regularly, and the output is a calendar, not a guess. Get me the transcripts and you will know your dates by the end of the week.