It’s tax time and the hunt goes on for tax deductions to lower your income tax hit. Tax deductions lurk in the most unlikely places. If your Chapter 13 plan is catching up home loan arrears, look at your trustee’s annual report for some deductible mortgage interest. Most likely, the lender’s filed proof of [...]
Tax Issues In Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy can stop collection and eliminate tax debt in many situations. For more details on tax discharge see the article I wrote about Bankruptcy Tax Discharge on my personal site. While bankruptcy can be a very useful tool in dealing with the Internal Revenue Service and state collectors, it will not solve all problems. In many cases, a tax [...]
We all know that individual tax returns are due on April 15 (or a day or two later if April 15 is on a weekend). But Congress inserted a little tax time craziness into sections 1308 and 1307 of the new and drastically unimproved Bankruptcy Code of 2005. Section 1308(a) states: (a) Not later than [...]
Chapter 12 farm bankruptcy helps family farmers to keep their farms. It allows family farmers to reorganize their finances and operations. Chapter 12 was originally enacted by Congress in 1986, and was made permanent in 2005. It helps the farmer and the banker to sit down and work out alternatives for debt repayment. But according to [...]
Whether a tax refund will be taken by the Trustee in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy will depend on several factors. As a general rule, the amount of taxes withheld from your pay are prorated over the entire year. This means that the portion of the tax refund for the time before the bankruptcy filing is property of [...]
Everyone knows that you can’t discharge income taxes in bankruptcy. Right? No, not right at all. This misconception about bankruptcy law illustrates just why you shouldn’t substitute cocktail party gossip for the advice of a good lawyer. Especially when the question involves discharging income taxes in a consumer bankruptcy case. Generally, income taxes are discharged in [...]
