Do you meekly send your client’s tax return to creditors at their request? Two different authorities suggest it isn’t necessary. One of the stick-it-to-the-debtor provisions of BAPCPA is the mandate that the debtor provide a copy of his tax return to any creditor who requests it. 11 USC 521(e)(2). [I wonder that the reform law […]
Here’s How To Charge More For A “Simple” Bankruptcy Case
Client buy- in and time records saved a Florida bankruptcy attorney from disgorging fees twice the local average for a no asset Chapter 7. How? Marilyn J. Hochman is the poster child for the benefit in keeping meticulous time records when you’re representing consumer debtors. Even though you’re likely working on a flat-fee agreement, the […]
Perils Of The Courtroom
The judge approved my fee application for another $8,000 in a Chapter 13 that was never confirmed, but ambushed me on the statutory rules of conversion. It wasn’t the fight I had prepared to make over getting paid. My fee application was an inch thick; it sliced and diced the work I had done before […]
When It Doesn’t Add Up
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 […]
Five Steps To Due Diligence
Our professional well being and the successful outcome of the client’s case may well depend on how well we, as attorneys, have done our due diligence. “I asked the client”, you say. Perhaps not good enough, say the cases. Well done bankruptcy schedules require a substantial amount of information, much of it interrelated. Part of […]
A Tax Reminder for Chapter 13 Debtors
Don’t let your client forget to look at the Chapter 13 trustee’s disbursements in the case for income tax deductions. Mortgage interest, property taxes, business expenses and state income tax payments all may lurk in the trustee’s record of disbursements for 2010. Those payments are made with the debtor’s money, and it seems therefore to […]
10 Clues in The Debtor’s Tax Return
Vital information lurks in the debtor’s tax return. Are you flushing that information out and incorporating those nuggets in the petition, or are you content to wait for the trustee to confront your client in public at the 341 meeting with the inconsistency? Ten things you might find in the return: Dependents– how does the […]
