This being tax season, it's no surprise that, as an Indiana lawyer for bankruptcy, I get a lot of questions about tax refunds. "Do I get to keep my refund if I file bankruptcy in Indiana?" (At least ten blog readers asked that very question, so I decided to devote today's blog post to how the new bankruptcy laws in Indiana relate to tax refunds.
There are two possible scenarios here:
You file bankruptcy, already having received your refund.
(This is an area where it's important to seek proper bankruptcy information in Indiana!)
a) If you still have the cash from the refund, it becomes part of your assets, and must be listed in the bankruptcy paperwork. You're entitled to keep a certain amount of cash, so it would depend on how much you have in total assets whether you got to keep the refund or whether it needs to go towards repaying creditors.
b) You received the refund money before filing, and you've already spent the money. If the bankruptcy court finds you spent the money on luxuries and now are asking to have debts forgiven, the court will not look favorably on granting you a bankruptcy at all! If you spent the money "properly", meaning on necessities such as making a mortgage payment, catching up on bills, or having medical or dental work performed, that will not count against you.
You've filed bankruptcy and expect the refund to come in soon.
At the Creditors' Meeting, the trustee usually asks debtors whether they're expecting any money to come in. That's because the court wants to see if there are resources that can be used towards satisfying the debts. It's possible that (beyond the exemptions, meaning cash and assets you're allowed to keep), the tax refund would be lost by becoming part of the bankruptcy estate (used to pay creditors).
One of the Columbus bankruptcy lawyers in the Mark Zuckerberg bankruptcy law offices there was asked a question about property tax debt. First, property taxes aren't dischargeable in bankruptcy unless they became due more than a year ago. But, even if property tax were to be discharged by the bankruptcy court, the property could not be sold until the lien was paid off (because there wouldn't be a clear title). The attorney is now discussing with this Columbus taxpayer whether or not filing bankruptcy might help stop foreclosure.
You know the old saying, "Timing is everything?" That's something that comes to mind when it comes to tax refunds and bankruptcy. You may have read this idea in my earlier blog posts, but it bears repeating: The timing of tax refunds and individual bankruptcy in Indiana is not a do-it-yourself decision!

bankruptcy. As a bankruptcy lawyer in Indiana, I can tell you that the other thing not to do if you don’t want to be the victim of a “lookback” is to take cash advances totaling $750 or more from any one credit card in the 70 days leading up to your bankruptcy filing.
decided to devote today’s blog post to bill collectors and how to best deal with them. As I’ve explained in many prior blog posts, bankruptcy itself provides instant relief from harassment by bill collectors. But even during the days, months (and sometimes years) that go by until people make the big decision to actually file bankruptcy, knowing how to react to the collection process can make matters a lot less unpleasant.
financial start available through the new bankruptcy laws in Indiana.
banks wouldn't "demolish their credit scores."
equity:
comparing the percentage growth in business bankruptcy and individual bankruptcy in Indiana. While composing that blog, I got to thinking about the thousands of Indiana small business bankruptcy clients with whom I've worked over the years and what I've learned about the way entrepreneurs operate.
As an Indiana lawyer for bankruptcy these many years, I offer bankruptcy services and bankruptcy information in Indiana only, so I was curious to verify if those 2009 statistics are consistent with what happened in our state.
offices in each of those places are seeing, hearing, and reading.
Now, there’s a question that comes up all the time in the course of my work as an Indianapolis bankruptcy attorney and debt consolidation lawyer – Is there such a thing as guilt-free default? My associates who work as my Columbus bankruptcy lawyers and those who work in the Anderson and Bloomington Mark Zuckerberg bankruptcy law offices deal with this issue every day of the week as well:
A "
the only hair stylist in town."
From the reader's question, you can almost picture the situation: There's been a
offering Indiana bankruptcy information through blogs.
bankruptcy clients.
to find their jobs eliminated.
services in Indiana, and needless to say, during this recession, there have been many
more than usual small businesses needing Indiana bankruptcy help.

