If I file Chapter 13 due to house about to be sold at foreclosure sale, can federal taxes be included in the bankruptcy?

All your debts must be "included" in a bankruptcy filing. You are required to disclose and list EVERY debt you owe whether you want or must repay. The harder question is whether your federal taxes will be dischargeable, and if they are from recent years the answer will be no. If you are planning to file a chapter 13 case to try to save your home I certainly hope you have hired an experienced lawyer to help you. Chapter 13 cases are complicated and difficult - so much so that many bankruptcy lawyers choose not to do them. If you are serious about trying to prevent a foreclosure you MUST find a lawyer to work with, and it will be much easier to do that BEFORE you file the case on your own rather than after the fact when you realize you are in over your head.

All debts need to be listed in your bankruptcy petition. What happens with that debt will depend on a number of facts including the type of case you are filing and type of debts you have and what you plan to do with the collateral. Whether income taxes are potentially dischargeable will depend on facts you haven't provided in your question, facts that bear on when these income taxes have been assessed. Your attorney will want to obtain account transcripts from the tax authorities to verify the amounts and determine what may be dischargeable. Chapter 13, in my humble opinion, is too complicated to handle without legal representation. The success rates on pro per is in the single digit area, like 1%. I highly recommend you seek out a local qualified bankruptcy attorney versed in the chapter 13s and meet with that person to get to the bottom of these questions and other details you will want to consider before deciding whether to file and if so when.

Federal taxes are considered "priority taxes" if they cannot be discharged, although they can be paid off through a Chapter 13 plan. If the taxes were assessed more than 3 years ago, they are treated as "non-priority debt" and will get the same treatment as all other unsecured debt, meaning they will only get paid to the extent that you have the ability to pay them beyond the priority debts. The remaining non-priority taxes will be discharged at the end of your Chapter 13 plan if you complete it. Assuming you are filing the Chapter 13 in good faith, your plan must include a way to cure the arrearage on your mortgage AND it must pay off your priority taxes at the statutory interest rate (which is 3 percent for IRS.) If you aren't able to demonstrate that you have the means to handle these obligations, your case will be dismissed and you will not be able to keep your house out of foreclosure. The judge can bar you from filing another Chapter 13 for a period of time if s/he determines your filing was in bad faith, so you should not take this filing lightly. Very few people are successful in a Chapter 13 without legal help, even lawyers who think they can do it themselves.

When you file any sort of bankruptcy, you must include all debts, and that means you include your tax debts. Without knowing more about the tax debt, it is impossible to guess whether some, none or all of your tax debt might be eliminated in a bankruptcy.

Yes. I am assuming the taxes are not dischargeable. But yes, they can be included.

The question is unclear. A Chapter 13 will stop the foreclosure. If you wish to keep the home, you will have to bring the arrearages current during the Chapter 13 Plan and make your regular monthly house payments as well. Federal taxes, if owed, will also be paid in full during the course of your Chapter 13.

When you file a bankruptcy petition (any Chapter), you must include all of your assets and all of your liabilities (including Federal, State and local taxes). Bankruptcy law does not allow for the selective listing of any of your financial issues. This answer was provided as a public service to a question posed on the Law Q & A website. The answer is based on the information provided and is limited to those facts. Furthermore, the answer is based on California law and their application to bankruptcy law in California.

They are required to be included in a Chapter 13.