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Tax Deductions Hidden In Chapter 13

By Cathy Moran

tax deductions

Don’t miss the tax deductions hiding in your Chapter 13 bankruptcy. The same, very important debts that your Chapter 13 plan pays are often tax deductible. And you are still the person who’s paying, even if the trustee writes the check. Don’t miss out on those deductions. Tax deductions in bankruptcy Let’s look at some […]

Filed Under: Chapter 13, Featured, Taxes

Californians Can Now Keep Their Cars After Bankruptcy Without Reaffirmation

By Cathy Moran

bankruptcy reaffirmation

New California law, effective January 1, 2023, eliminates the need for bankruptcy debtors to reaffirm car loans in order to avoid repossession. Now, you can keep your car after bankruptcy, so long as you keep the payments current, without reaffirming the debt. Until now, reaffirmation had the effect of giving up the discharge as to […]

Filed Under: Featured, Strictly California Tagged With: 2023, bankruptcy, Car, car loan, reaffirmation

We Live In An Economic House Of Cards

By Cathy Moran

I’ve long said to bankruptcy clients that bankruptcy can’t fix an income problem, it can just ameliorate an outgo problem. In the last round of frantic bankruptcy filings a decade ago, one symptom seemed to be that too many families in the Silicon Valley  couldn’t really afford to live a middle class life here. They […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2018

Does Bankruptcy Bar Retirement Savings?

By Cathy Moran

retirement contributions

Ongoing retirement saving by Chapter 13 debtors has been a touchy subject since the means test became a part of the bankruptcy scene. The means test was intended to squeeze every available dollar from consumer debtors. It works by limiting the expenses that can be deducted from income in figuring what a debtor can/must pay […]

Filed Under: Chapter 13, Featured Tagged With: 2020, means test, retirement

Your Vote, Your Voice

By Cathy Moran

voting matters

Government is serious work. For it to work well, it requires lawmakers who take those responsibilities seriously. Making laws requires making choices and expressing values. The rest of us live with those choices. As a bankruptcy lawyer, I live day to day with the vindictive and creditor friendly choices the Congress made in 2005 when […]

Filed Under: Featured

Pay Down Debt Or Save? Which Should Come First

By Cathy Moran

Pay off debt first or start saving now? It’s a debate almost as convoluted as which came first, the chicken or the egg? Experts heatedly take opposite sides. You get rid of debt faster if you put all available cash into paying off balances. BUT You have no reserves for the unexpected if you spend everything that […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2016

7 Essentials For Better Results From Filing Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

before filing bankruptcy

Plan before filing bankruptcy and you get better, more certain relief. Even if you’re not quite sure that you’re ready to take the bankruptcy plunge, scout the bankruptcy territory. Take some time to learn the rules and explore ways to maximize the relief available in bankruptcy. If you don’t plan ahead and just rush into […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Featured Tagged With: 2021, means test

What Can Bankruptcy Do About Back Taxes

By Cathy Moran

wipe out taxes

Bankruptcy wipes out taxes and leaves you with a clean slate. But somehow, the second biggest myth about bankruptcy is that taxes can’t be discharged. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The limits on discharging taxes in bankruptcy are few. You can’t discharge That’s it. Like anything in the law, there are details that make for hard reading. […]

Filed Under: Featured, Taxes Tagged With: 2022, discharge taxes

Pay Or Go To Jail Tops IRS List Of Tax Scams

By Cathy Moran

The phone caller recites his IRS badge number. Then he demands immediate payment of “overdue taxes” by wire transfer or debit card. Fail to pay, he warns, and you will be arrested. Or lose your license. Or be deported. Absolutely horrifying. And absolutely untrue. Yet this scenario is repeated often enough that it made the top […]

Filed Under: Featured, Taxes

Surefire Steps To Avoid Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

Most people would rather parade naked down Main Street than file bankruptcy. Bankruptcy makes them feel exposed, defeated, ashamed. They’ll do anything to avoid bankruptcy. If you don’t want to go there, you can order your life so you don’t ever need bankruptcy relief from debts you can’t pay. I’ve figured out the formula that assures […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Featured

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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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