11 B 41555, 13 A 01243
Upon certain defendants’ motions to dismiss the Trustee’s fraudulent conveyance adversary complaint on statute of limitations grounds, the Trustee argues that it may rely on such longer statute of limitations as may be applicable to the IRS as an actual prepetition creditor of the bankruptcy estate.  In response, a limited number of the moving defendants jointly move for an order disallowing the IRS’s claim.
 
In considering the foregoing, held:  With respect to the motion to disallow the claim, adversary defendants qua adversary defendants lack standing to object to claims.  As such, the joint motion to disallow is DENIED.
 
With respect to the motions to dismiss, for the purposes of testing the sufficiency of the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), transfers occurring more than 2 years prior to the petition date are time-barred under section 548 of the Bankruptcy Code and the motions to dismiss will be GRANTED in this respect.  As to the remaining grounds, the court accepts the allegations in the complaint as true, wherein the Trustee has alleged that the IRS is a prepetition creditor of the bankruptcy estate.  That allegation is supported by the actual claim on file by the IRS at the commencement of the adversary.  As the trustee may act within the statute of limitations applicable to any creditor of the estate, including such longer statutes as apply to the IRS, and as the transfers sought to be avoided by the Trustee appear to fall within those longer periods, the court finds for these purposes that the Trustee’s actions are not conclusively time-barred.  The motions to dismiss are therefore DENIED in this respect.  The legal and factual predicates of the defendants’ statute of limitations affirmative defense, including, but not limited to, whether the IRS had an allowable claim against the estate on the petition date, remain issues to be determined on summary judgment or at trial, not in the limited scope of a motion to dismiss, and such arguments are preserved.