Does a federal bankruptcy order protecting one spouse for joint federal tax libility supersede claim by other spouse in state level divorce proceeding

First of all, unless you filed a complaint in the bankruptcy court to determine the dischargeability of the tax obligations, I doubt there was any federal court order discharging them.  They may have been discharged as part of your general discharge (assuming they met the numerous requirements for discharge of taxes) but that has nothing to do with any obligations you owe to your spouse, either before or after a bankruptcy case is filed. In any event,  you're concerned about a divorce court ordering you to pay taxes owed by your spouse.  The confusion you have is the following:  This would  not a debt owed to the taxing agency(ies), but rather to your spouse as part of the divorce (either as support or as a marital equalization payment).  Either way, even if it was owed prior to filing your bankruptcy case, it would not be dischargeable in bankruptcy.  The fact that it is to be incurred after your bankruptcy case was filed makes it even less of an issue:  It's clearly not dischargeable and would be an obligation owed to your spouse. Mark Markus has been practicing exclusively bankruptcy law in California since 1991.  He is a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization,  AV-Rated by martindale.com, and A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau.