While the IRS shows the early withdrawal penalty for taking money from an IRA as tax, several cases uphold treating it as a penalty, therefore, dischargeable in Chapter 13. No matter how often I go to NACBA events, I always end up with a couple of dynamite ideas that justify the time and expense. This […]
Meet Me in Puerto Rico
Dateline: San Francisco International Airport I’m leaving on a jet plane, to coin a phrase<g>, for NACBA’s Fall Workshop in Puerto Rico. Nothing that all day on a plane can’t accomplish. If you’re attending, please look me up and introduce yourself. I’d love to have faces attached to names, in the ever optimistic thought that […]
Twelve Ways to Tweak Schedule J
When the debtor’s Schedules J shows a significant number on the bottom line, that “excess income” may suggest the case is an abuse. The first question should always be: “How real are the projected Schedule J expenses”? In districts where the difference between I and J retains some significance in Chapter 7, bankruptcy attorneys need to […]
New Bankruptcy Lawyers – Beware Strangers With Candy
Concern for bankruptcy clients who weren’t well represented by brand new bankruptcy lawyers got me started with this project. As I told colleagues, some of the lawyering I saw was so bad that we needed to either teach the newcomers to be better lawyers or run them out of the practice, because they were unwittingly […]
The Mystery Of The Disappearing Means Test Deduction
Just when you thought you figured out the means test, a debtor throws you a curveball. Like the Naked City, there are eight million means test stories out there. This is one of them. Last night, I’m reviewing a petition that a young lawyer I mentor was prepared to file. The debtor is recently married […]
Means Test: Mean and Meaningless
Years after BAPCPA became law, I’m still grinding my teeth about the inanity of the means test. It consumes a huge amount of my time, gathering numbers about the cost of telecommunications services and my client’s projected costs of health care. I get to know more about their ailments than anyone but their spouse and […]
Means Test: Getting Business Income Correct
I expect clients to conflate themselves and their wholly owned business corporation; I didn’t expect the new bankruptcy lawyer to treat the corporation as if it didn’t exist. Yet as I reviewed a B-22 for a rookie bankruptcy lawyer, I found all of the corporation’s gross income included in the means test for the individual […]
