Boyd v. Commissioner of IRS

COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge.

This case invites us to consider whether 1998 revisions to the United States Tax Code eliminated the historical distinction between a “levy” and an “offset” and require the same procedural protections for both. The government traditionally has been thought to possess a common law right, as a creditor, to “offset,” or “set off,” funds owed to a taxpayer and thus held by the government — without prior notice — “to reduce the taxpayer’s outstanding tax liability,” United States ex rel. P.J. Keating Co. v. Warren Corp., 805 F.2d 449, 451-52 & n. 3 (1st Cir.1986); see…