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Marital Adjustment: Everything But The Kitchen Sink

By Cathy Moran, Esq. Filed Under: Means test

marital adjustment

Not every expenditure that benefits the debtor’s household or his family is a household expense. And, if it’s not a household expense, it doesn’t get added to CMI in a single spouse bankruptcy filing. That’s how the marital adjustment should work. But it’s not so simple. Household expense is not an expansive definition During a NACBA […]

Filed Under: Means test Tagged With: marital adjustment, means test

When The Means Test Is Meaningless

By Cathy Moran, Esq. Filed Under: Means test

bankruptcy means test

A local bankruptcy attorney stumbled over the most basic part of the  means test. Just this week…  nearly 15 years after the bankruptcy “reform” act of 2005. I thought we were several years past bankruptcy attorneys  clueless about the means test. But apparently not. When the means test doesn’t apply This fine fellow told a […]

Filed Under: Means test Tagged With: 2019, means test

The Means Test: The Clunker Allowance

By Cathy Moran, Esq. Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

As if the means test wasn’t illogical and opaque enough, consider  the unwritten provision for old cars. Where do you find the unwritten allowance?  It’s not in the Bankruptcy Code but in the Internal Revenue Manual at 5.8.20.3. The IRS  allows a delinquent taxpayer with a paid for car more than 6 years old or […]

Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice Tagged With: means test, ownership allowance

When It Doesn’t Add Up

By Cathy Moran, Esq. Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

It wasn’t a week after my friend Fredrick’s presentation on due diligence for bankruptcy lawyers that the need for one of his tricks emerged.  There seems to be an ethereal convergence about such things. The client hadn’t revealed to the young lawyer bonuses that he had received in the means test look back period. The […]

Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice Tagged With: bankruptcy practice skills, due diligence, means test

Household Size Vanishes From Means Test Form

By Cathy Moran, Esq. Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Drafters of the official bankruptcy forms have excised “household size” from the B-22 where we calculate the part A IRS standard allowances.  In its place is “applicable number of persons”, which the form indicates is the number of exemptions the debtor would currently be allowed on their tax return plus the number of other persons […]

Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice Tagged With: bankruptcy forms, means test

Means Test: Getting Business Income Correct

By Cathy Moran, Esq. Filed Under: Business bankruptcy, Means test

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 […]

Filed Under: Business bankruptcy, Means test Tagged With: bankruptcy business income, business bankruptcy, means test

Means Test & The Exemption See-Saw

By Cathy Moran, Esq. Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

What can my client do with non exempt cash or readily saleable items not protected by an exemption, the newbie asked. As I looked down my list of things to do with excess cash, I saw an issue I hadn’t explored before:  some of best ways to use up non exempt cash may result in […]

Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice Tagged With: bankruptcy exemptions, means test

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