The issue has provoked battles in the litigation. In late September, Rosner filed a motion saying that the IRS had threatened to subpoena him for details on his business. Rosner responded that the information would violate non-disclosure agreements, reveal trade secrets and “result in irreparable damage to my ability to continue in my professional capacities.”

Rosner also contends that the IRS is retaliating against him. In one motion, he describes a “disturbing” incident when an IRS revenue officer showed up unannounced last year at the office of his attorneys in a different tax matter and threatened to file a lien against him. Even though the IRS owed him money, Rosner wrote, he was forced to sell assets to come up with $280,000 so the lien wouldn’t be imposed.

IRS Deadline

The roots of Rosner’s lawsuit revolve around a law that sets a three-year IRS deadline for taxpayers to collect overpayments.

In 2013, Rosner filed his tax returns for 2006 through 2010. They showed he was due refunds for 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Rosner also refers in one motion to negotiations with the IRS over his 2011 through 2014 taxes. While they aren’t part of the lawsuit, he wrote that he owed the government about $280,000 for two of the years, and had overpaid about $416,000 in the others.

The law allows taxpayers with a financial disability to collect refunds even after the deadline has lapsed. The condition is defined as a “physical or mental impairment of the individual which can be expected to result in death, or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months.”

Doctors’ Assessments

Rosner submitted two doctors’ assessments to the IRS, concluding that that he suffered from post-traumatic stress and adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood, largely due to the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

“As many as 40 former colleagues and close friends died that day and he spent the next year going to funerals, memorial services and consoling the grieving spouses and families of the deceased,” a psychiatrist wrote in a letter that is partially included in the court file.