Tax Liens in Dallas Bankruptcy

Potential Dallas TX chapter 7 debtors have personal property which is roughly equal in value to their $8,000 general exemption under bankruptcy law, so normally they could file chapter 7 and not have to worry about the trustee taking their stuff. However, the IRS has registered tax liens which are far in excess of the value of their personal property, and exemptions don’t apply to the IRS. Sounds like there might be a different result in cases where no tax lien has been filed, because while most IRS debts are priority, they are still unsecured. In other words, while the Dallas trustee would have no incentive to pay the secured claims under lien, she might still have incentive to pay the priority and even general unsecured claims. The manual for chapter 7 case administration applies to Dallas Texas bankruptcy lawyers and Dallas bankruptcy filing. Trustees are not supposed to liquidate secured property unless there would be excess for the unsecured creditors. However, I have a trustee currently demanding the right to do just this. So, I am pointing out to her that with no benefit to the Estate, she has no way of getting paid. In order for the trustee to get paid for selling property to satisfy secured claims, they would need to get permission from the court to surcharge the collateral for the costs of administration.