Cite as: 535 U. S. 43 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
tioners took advantage of this loophole, which, they believe, is permitted by the Bankruptcy Code.
We disagree. The three-year lookback period is a limitations period subject to traditional principles of equitable tolling. Since nothing in the Bankruptcy Code precludes equitable tolling of the lookback period, we believe the courts below properly excluded from the three-year limitation the period during which the Youngs' Chapter 13 petition was pending.
A
The lookback period is a limitations period because it prescribes a period within which certain rights (namely, priority and nondischargeability in bankruptcy) may be enforced. 1 H. Wood, Limitations of Actions § 1, p. 1 (4th D. Moore ed. 1916). Old tax claims—those pertaining to returns due more than three years before the debtor filed the bankruptcy petition—become dischargeable, so that a bankruptcy decree will relieve the debtor of the obligation to pay. The period thus encourages the IRS to protect its rights—by, say, collecting the debt, 26 U. S. C. §§ 6501, 6502 (1994 ed. and Supp. V), or perfecting a tax lien, §§ 6322, 6323(a), (f) (1994 ed.)— before three years have elapsed. If the IRS sleeps on its rights, its claim loses priority and the debt becomes dischargeable. Thus, as petitioners concede, the lookback period serves the same "basic policies [furthered by] all limitations provisions: repose, elimination of stale claims, and certainty about a plaintiff's opportunity for recovery and a defendant's potential liabilities." Rotella v. Wood, 528 U. S. 549, 555 (2000). It is true that, unlike most statutes of limitations, the lookback period bars only some, and not all, legal remedies 1 for enforcing the claim (viz., priority and
1 Equitable remedies may still be available. Traditionally, for example, a mortgagee could sue in equity to foreclose mortgaged property even though the underlying debt was time barred. Hardin v. Boyd, 113 U. S. 756, 765-766 (1885); 2 G. Glenn, Mortgages §§ 141-142, pp. 812-818 (1943); see also Beach v. Ocwen Fed. Bank, 523 U. S. 410, 415-416 (1998) (recoup-
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