A federal judge has rejected a bid by Schwartz, Simon, Edelstein & Celso to stop the Internal Revenue Service from issuing levies to its clients while the firm fights a $600,000 obligation in U.S. Tax Court.

The IRS began sending the notices to the Whippany firm's clients after it defaulted in 2015 on a plan requiring installments of $20,000 per month toward its outstanding taxes. But U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler denied the firm's request for a preliminary injunction against the levies of clients, finding it failed to show that it is likely to succeed on the merits.

Schwartz Simon's motion for a preliminary injunction is subject to the Anti-Injunction Act, but it failed to establish that its claim falls within the narrow judicial exception to the act, Chesler said. The act bars suits filed with “the purpose of restraining the assessment of collection of any tax,” the judge said.