The decision may not be known for months.

Nicholas T. Scott of Kapaa had won the right in all of the courts below the Supreme Court to get back $30,000 he paid the IRS in the 1980s when he didn't owe it, plus thousands more in interest.

But the IRS said the deadline to claim refunds - three years in some cases and two in others - was well over when Scott recovered from alcoholism sufficiently to figure out what happened and file for a refund.

Scott's problem then was alcohol. His problem today was to convince the Supreme Court that while he was an alcoholic, he was mentally incompetent and incapable of taking care of his finances. That made him, Scott says, just as worthy of a deadline extension as anyone else incapable of getting things done on time because of mental illness or other infirmities

In a telephone interview from Washington today after the half-hour hearing, Scott said the questions from the justices made it seem they were in favor of the government and against the taxpayer, but he acknowledged that there is no way to know what the justices are thinking.

Scott said he isn't standing still while he waits for the decision. The Treasury Department has drafted legislation to help incompetent taxpayers, but no bill has yet been introduced, he said.

While he is in Washington for the next few days he'll make calls on the department and members of Congress. "Whatever happens to me, I'm out campaigning for the other realistically disabled individuals who do not have the capacity to represent themselves," he said.

Scott, who has been on the mainland for about six months dealing with family and business matters, recently took the Hawaii bar examination and said he hopes to practice law when he returns to Kauai in a month or so. He was an attorney in California when his troubles began.

Scott, who says he has conquered his drinking problem, first won his point before a Hawaii federal judge, Alan C. Kay, who ruled in 1992 that the IRS should repay him.

The IRS refused and the Justice Department tacked a case against Scott on to another brought against Marian Brockamp, whose father had died at 93 years of age after some years earlier writing a check to the IRS for $7,000, an amount he thought he owed. The amount actually owed was $700.

Brockamp sued and won but the IRS took that case to the San Francisco-based appeals court, along with Scott's. The appeals court ruled that Brockamp and Scott deserved special treatment. The IRS again disagreed and took the case to the Supreme Court.

Scott and Brockamp had the unusual distinction of having their cases mentioned early this year by President Clinton, who said he wouldn't interfere but thought the Treasury Department should come up with new rules for mentally incompetent taxpayers.

Scott represented himself in the lower courts and won. Today, he had help; California attorney Robert F. Klueger represented him and Brockamp.