The IRS and all state income tax authorities are perfectly willing to work out a payment plan if a person will just communicate with them. The fact that this has resulted in garnishment tells me that he ignored them until that was the only option they had to collect what was owed to them. It looks like he treated his child support the same way But given a $200,000 tax liability over a ten year period, at least he has decent income with which to support the child who he brought into the world, and also to pay the government as the rest of us do. He should communicate with these taxing authorities and still try to work out a payment plan he can afford.

Whether a specific tax liability can be discharged in bankruptcy is an extremely complex piece of law, and definitely not message board material. My guess is that he could discharge some things, such as intrest that accrues during the bankruptcy proceeding and a few other items, but not the underlying tax liability.

If any of this debt involves withheld taxes from employee payroll, he has committed the unpardonable sin in the eyes of the IRS because those are considered trust fund taxes, i.e. not his money in the first place but money that he had constodial control over and failed to forward it to the government.