Nicholas T. Scott of Kapaa now has until May 12 to respond to a Justice Department petition against him in the high court. The response had been due April 23, Scott said.
Scott has been fighting for $30,000 he paid the Internal Revenue Service for 1985, a year in which he in fact did not owe any taxes. The IRS wouldn't repay the money because, it said, Scott filed for the refund after a two-year time limit had expired.
Scott, representing himself, went on to convince a federal court in Honolulu and a U.S. appeals court that the deadline should not apply because alcoholism rendered him mentally incompetent when he overpaid his taxes.
The IRS still would not pay, however, and in January of this year asked the Supreme Court to decide. If the high court won't hear the case, Scott said, he is due the $30,000 plus many thousands more in interest.
The Supreme Court recently asked Scott and representatives of a deceased taxpayer who filed a similar case to respond to the Justice Department's petition to the high court.
Scott said he hopes his response, when he does file it, will convince the court not to hear the case and leave the earlier decisions in his favor standing, so he can get his money back.
He had the unusual distinction of having his case mentioned early this year by President Clinton, who said he wouldn't interfere but thought the Treasury Department should come up with new rules specifically for cases like Scott's, where a period of mental incompetence was proved in court.
The other case Clinton mentioned involved a man in his nineties who was senile when he wrote the IRS a check for $7,000 when he meant $700.
Scott said that while Clinton's interest and the earlier push by the IRS and the Justice Department make the incompetency cases seem important, they really aren't. At least, not important enough to go before the highest court in the land, he said.
There has been none of the rush of similar cases that Justice said would come. "It hasn't happened," Scott said in a telephone interview Monday.
Besides, he said, the high court doesn't hear more than about 100 of the thousands of cases that come before it each year.
At the very least the case could wait a while until some other district cases are decided, because the courts so far are about evenly decided, he said.
"I've got the time and the inclination (to wait)," he said. Still, Scott holds to the idea that he has right on his side. "If you overpaid the electricity bill, or the gas bill, don't you deserve a refund?"
He had been an attorney practicing in California when his troubles started. He lost his law license because of his drinking, bought a wine shop with an inheritance, lost that too and got his affairs in a muddle because of alcoholism, according to his legal filings.
Scott said that he is contemplating trying out for a law license again, perhaps in Hawaii, and has his alcoholism under control. Meanwhile, he is looking after a friend's house on Kauai.