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What happens in Vegas…

By Cathy Moran

gambling debts

May make you a felon. Funny, the Las Vegas PR doesn’t mention criminal prosecution for unpaid gambling markers. Yet Nevada treats gambling markers like negotiable instruments (i.e. checks).  Failure to satisfy a marker within 30 days can lead to criminal charges. Gambling debts gone in bankruptcy Most bankruptcy courts have held that gambling debts are […]

Filed Under: How bankruptcy works

Are You Liable For Your Spouse’s Debts In California?

By Cathy Moran

spouse's debts

“Everyone knows” that California’s community property law makes you liable for spouse’s debts. Only, “everyone” is wrong. Or, more accurately, they’re only half right. Community property is liable for everything In California, the community property is liable for the debts of either spouse. In fact, the community property is liable for the debts that either […]

Filed Under: Strictly California Tagged With: community property

Tax Tips & Tidbits To Pay Less

By Cathy Moran

tax tool roundup

Tax filing deadline approaches, so I thought we’d gather up tax tips and little known tax strategies, especially useful if you’ve filed bankruptcy. The Tax Deduction No One Tells You About If you are paying mortgage interest, state taxes, back support, or business debt through a Chapter 13 plan, those payments made by the trustee […]

Filed Under: Featured, Taxes Tagged With: 2016

Jailed For Debt In The USA?

By Cathy Moran

Jailed for debt

Worried about being arrested and jailed for not paying your bills? A surprising number of people think it’s possible. Yet the only way that you can end up in jail for not paying your bills comes from not opening the mail. Ignoring debt doesn’t work In my experience, people with money troubles often stop opening […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights

Scammers Spoof IRS To Get Your Info

By Cathy Moran

computer scam

Tax season saw a 400% rise in fake email to taxpayers pretending to be from the IRS. The scammers want you to click a link, give them information, or otherwise open yourself to identity theft. Identity theft and the diversion of tax refunds is the number one tax scam.  Fake email is third. Protect yourself as […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Taxes Tagged With: 2016

Bankruptcy Alphabet: B Is For Business

By Cathy Moran

Business is my bankruptcy “B’ word. Business debt of the individual filing bankruptcy is dischargeable just as other personal debt. In Silicon Valley, the very innovation and risk taking that makes the Valley vibrant brings with it the risks of not making it in the marketplace. Bankruptcy can be the “do over” vehicle, freeing manpower and […]

Filed Under: ABC's of bankruptcy, How bankruptcy works

Is A Free Bankruptcy Consultation Worth It?

By Cathy Moran

No matter how much they’ve spent on other stuff, those shopping for a bankruptcy lawyer seem to expect a free consultation. “Everyone else offers a free consultation” I’m told. Not me:  I don’t do “free”. But I’ve come to doubt what other bankruptcy attorneys offer is really a free consultation. Oh, it may be free, […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, You & your lawyer

The Most Costly Community Property Blunder

By Cathy Moran

california property

What do you do when creditors from your spouse’s past threaten? Chances are your first reaction is to put the title to your biggest assets in just your name. Whew! Safe. Not. Just because  the deed to the house now reads Jane Doe instead of John Doe and Jane Doe it’s easy to think the house is Jane’s separate […]

Filed Under: Family Law, Strictly California

10 Tips To Help You Keep Your House

By Cathy Moran

keeping your home

When financial trouble rears its head, keeping the house becomes a number one priority. Whether the pinch is caused by loss of income, a loan that resets, or business slow down, you can find making the mortgage payments a challenge.  Not to mention sorting out escrow screwups and changes of servicers. So, we’re rounding up […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: keep my house

The Secret Bankruptcy Exemptions

By Cathy Moran

Exemptions in bankruptcy are all about what you keep. Exemptions define the collection of assets and rights that are safe from the reach of a bankruptcy trustee or your creditors. But planning exemptions in a bankruptcy case is more than just the looking down the list of things you keep through bankruptcy and the dollar amount […]

Filed Under: How bankruptcy works

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Bankruptcy Basics

About The Soapbox

You’ve arrived at the Bankruptcy Soapbox, a resource of bankruptcy information and consumer law.

Soapbox is a companion site to Bankruptcy in Brief, where I try to be largely explanatory and even handed (Note I said “try”).

Here, I allow myself to tell stories and express strong opinions. We dig deeper into how to consider bankruptcy and navigate a bankruptcy case.

Moran Law Group
Bankruptcy specialists for individuals and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area

How Bankruptcy Works

Cheat Sheet For Passing Bankruptcy Means Test

The bankruptcy means test has a fatal weakness in its attempt to keep people out of bankruptcy. Like so much recently, it's health care. It's health care, in the future, to be paid before your creditors get any money in your bankruptcy. It works because, in a logic that only Congress could employ, the means … Read more

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