Talk:Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act

MA Income
72 thousand dollars as the average income in MA?!?!?! I really, really doubt that number. I hate to suggest fact checks, but that seems so outta whack, even for MA, that I wanna see some kinda proof."


 * Its been a while since I read this but I am almost positive that that is for a "family of four" bracket. Double income households would have each income earner making $36K ..... I will look up the exact stats and add a link when I can find the info agaon. &mdash;the preceding comment is by 170.201.180.136 - 07:26, 30 June 2006: Please sign your posts!


 * The 72K figure is a little old, it's actually >80K for a family of four now. The extlink to the actual numbers is already on the main page, look for this extlink: US Trustee Means Testing page with Median Income Table --Flawiki 11:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I love this thing
Just wipe out a good deal of work on my part to make the article a little less biased, including a rather useful external link to the American Bankruptcy Institute's analysis of the law. And yes, I'm a lawyer. Thanks.

Arniebuteft 09:39, 14 October 2005 (CDT)


 * I backed out your edit because it excised a number of neutral, verifiable, yet still objectively negative facts about BAPCPA/BARF. The rationale for backing the edits out was described in slightly more length in the section below entitled POV.  You're experiencing the tension explored a bit on the Be Bold wiki article. I myself am an ABI member (a debtor's counsel, primarily consumers; go figure) and like many others here, an attorney. I have a sneaking suspicion we have some creditors and perhaps a OUST folk or two... Flawiki 17:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer, but I am wondering why it is phrased that Republican Jim Sensenbrenner sought to make it harder for people in Katrina trying to file for bankruptcy, when in actual fact he said the opposite. The new law makes it harder to file for bankruptcy, Sensenbrenner has said that people in Katrina would not have to file under the new law, quote "If someone in Katrina is down and out, and has no possibility of being able to repay 40 percent or more of their debts, then the new bankruptcy law doesn't apply,", which means that those on hard times will not have to file under the new law, meaning that they will be able to take advantage of the old law. Which is the opposite of what is being written and suggested. Can anyone tell me why the author has suggested the inverse of what he actually said?

POV?
I backed out a large revision by Arniebuteft to the last ver by Markles (the edit descr came up incorrectly due to my butterfingered typing and inadequate field length).

I think it'd be difficult to dispute that the article carries an anti-BARF tone, but I'm not sure excising large chunks of factual, neutral material is the way to fix tonal issues. For ex, nuking the factual passage noting the ch 7 means test applies only to debtors with primarily consumer debts (new 707(b)(1)) itself may expose some POV, or perhaps it's just fast editing. In any event I'd ask that there'd be some discussion before additional substantive wiping of passages in this article were performed under the guise of NPOVing it, or even just an attempt to convert that which is POV into NPOV while preserving the facts. Flawiki 01:48, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Removed a very NPOV source (http://ngos.net/credit/) and related language. There's no problem with including the language "One criticism of the law was that the law made the discharge of liability for medical bills more difficult.", but it should be from a source that is at least facially unbiased. Biccat (talk) 15:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Wrong. In Wikipedia, there is no requirement that the SOURCE be unbiased -- facially or otherwise. Please study the Wikipedia rule on "Neutral Point of View." Famspear (talk) 18:36, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Here's the rule:


 * .....Biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid. Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the writer's point of view.


 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view


 * Neutral point of view does NOT mean "Wikipedia cannot use biased sources." Neutral point of view means (in part) that Wikipedia itself cannot take sides as to which source -- biased or not -- is correct. Famspear (talk) 18:40, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Credit Counseling Requirement
Im making an attempt to gather and post some information about the new Credit counseling requirement of this act. I added an internal link here.

I have a question I hope someone can help. I filed bankruptcy in 1998 and have made great attempts at fixing my debts. I found out lately that a credit card company that was part of my bankruptcy is constantly reporting me to the credit bureau even though they were part of my bankruptcy 8+ years ago. How can I fix this, is this illegal. This was my credit union, which I had a credit card with at the time of bankruptcy. They were listed with my creditors and I followed all the rules and paid my Chapter 13 off just like the lawyer and the bankruptcy court ordered. Now I find out they are reporting me as recently as 2006. HELP!

Ruth Conner

"Inadequate government response"
This sentence is highly POV, and I have removed it. There are many (myself included) who hold that the government did too much in response to the recent unpleasantness. Kurt Weber 19:17, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Although I disagree that the response was adequate I do agree with Kurt Weber that the bits removed were POV and should be left out of this article. With that passage excised might it be appropriate now to remove the NPOV-sect tag? As I'd not edited the removed passage into the article or POV tagged it, I'm not at all certain if that was section's offensive element, and would therefore defer to further discussion. --Flawiki 23:41, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * No other discussion noted so off it comes. --Flawiki 21:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Section headings
Hi everyone. I am interested in bankruptcy policy issues and came across this article. I thought it could really benefit from splitting the content into subject headings. I added three: Overview, criticisms, and legislative history. I also added content to the legislative history section, which previously did not exist.

I wonder if someone might be interested in trying to boil down the overview section. I think a lot of the important information is in there, but I think it could be easier to read, especially for people not schooled in the US bankruptcy code. I am happy to try to help on this task as well. --Mackabean 21:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Since no one jumped at the chance to work on the overview section, and I had some time, I tried to reformulate it with some section headings and subheadings to make it easier to read. I also tried to make the language a little more user friendly for the non lawyers who come to this page.  Finally, added a criticisms section, as I understand that this law was fairly controversial in some quarters. I welcome any thoughts on these changes. Many of the provisions of this law are quite technical, so if anyone sees pieces that are missing or should be clarified from the provisions section, please holler :) --Mackabean 22:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

OJ Simpson
The article currently says that OJ moved to FL and filed for BK. The stated reason is that he wanted to take advantage of the homestead exemption. I cannot find anything on PACER showing that he in fact filed BK. There is a filing for some company owned by his children that owned the rights to the "If I Did It" book. OJ moved to Florida to take advantage of the unlimited home exemption, but that was just to avoid collection, not to file BK. Can anyone provide proof that OJ in fact filed BK? Bgrainger 00:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay I was gone for a while.... no one can source OJ filing BK, I cannot find him on PACER so I removed that reference. He moved to FL to take advantage of their exemptions to avoid collection. The debt to Goldman would not be subject to discharge anyway. Bgrainger 20:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bgrainger (talk • contribs)

Citation question
I added to the Provisions section a while back the following: "Chapter 13, Chapter 7, and Chapter 11 filers must also complete a course in “personal financial management” after filing the bankruptcy but before the bankruptcy is discharged." The citation link was removed as "not meeting WP:RS as a source".

So here's the question: if the citation was untrusted, then why was the fact retained? Alternately, if the fact was good, why was the citation of that fact removed? Just trying to understand how things work around here, thanks. Yankeerudy (talk) 20:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Your website does not meet WP:RS for sourcing, but the entire section needs sourcing. Flowanda | Talk 02:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Merging in Chapter 7 material
The recent changes I made were in response to a summarize tag on the Chapter 7 page. There was too much specific information about the BAPCPA changes on the Chapter 7 page that were better suited in the more specific article, which is here. This change is keeping in line with the format on the other Bankruptcy pages, like the primary Bankruptcy in the United States article, with its general theme, and links to specific pages.

In doing so I've added a lot of that information here. When that information overlapped with information already on this page, I combined the two. I've only removed a few substantive changes. These include: 1) Remove disposable monthly income from means test section--disposable monthly income is not a chapter 7 concept, in fact it is specific to chapter 13 where it is used to calculate plan payments; that has been clairified here. The "DMI" numbers listed were incorrect (they're actually half of the means test numbers). The chapter 7 imports have the correct calculations. 2) Remove "deadbeat dad" sentence. This small paragraph made it seem like the changes made it easier for those with prioritized debt to file under chapter 7. This was based on the incorrect disposible income figure discussed in #1. BAPCPA also made divorce settlement debts nondischargable in chapter 7, as well as made child support debt nondischargable in all cases, which is at least relevant to a mention that the section benefited this class of debtors. As it was written, it had some NPOV problems. It should be reinserted if these problems can be smoothed out. LH (talk) 00:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Chapter 15
Someone should note that a brand new chapter was added to the bankruptcy code: Chapter 15. Chapter 15 is the United States' adoption of the UNCITRAL's Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency. That chapter may be especially signficant in the current global economic climate.

Global Financial Crisis
Its rather difficult to believe that Hurricane Katrina merits a subsection here but the global financial crisis nothing more than a "See also" link. Jim Bowery (talk) 02:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well this is about a particular act, and the Katrina information is pretty specific (although arguably misleading) in relation to the Act. There is not similar information in the article right now about connections between the Act and the Global financial crisis. If that information was appropriate for the article, then it would warrant its own section. LH (talk) 01:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A quick search provides several articles      Jim Bowery (talk) 17:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As always, you should feel free to add to the article. I only would caution that the article really should be about just the act itself, and not about every consequence of the statutes it put in place. Very little of what changed in the Act happened in a vacuum, and it's much more useful to put the consequences of the changes in the broader bankruptcy article rather than in the article about the act itself.


 * I'm not sure the Jacoby article really says much in regards to the Act and the financial crisis. The Tribune article merely comments that the amendments made filing harder, as does the Arizona article, also pointing out that the changes led to a spike in filings. None of these except maybe the spike in filings, which pre-dated the current financial problems. I encourage you to add to the article, but I'm not sure what angle there is on the financial crisis. LH (talk) 04:52, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Bankruptcy Exploitation
I haven't heard much about bankruptcy exploitation techniques that this fixed. I heard from someone that they knew of a guy who owned a trucking business, and would file for bankruptcy every 3 years or whatever it took and would buy a bunch of things for himself and his family like cars and new trucks. Then he would sell it to people who worked under him for a penny, so when it came to liquidation the business would have nothing. Then his employees would turn around and give the items back. Then he'd open a new trucking business under a new name and repeat this. I think he did this 4 times. For example, on his kid's 16th birthday he bought them a $60,000 car, and still owns it after bankruptcy.

The last I heard he did this was 2003, so I'm guessing this law fixed that? Isn't what this guy did a crime, or is this just the perception of an outside individual who doesn't know the whole story? &mdash;the preceding comment is by 24.119.117.120 - 14:57, March 7, 2009 Please sign your posts!

Thank you
Thank you to whoever has helped create this article. It is much better written than my text book on Bankruptcy. Although it does not have many in-line references, of the material I have read, I found nothing that contradicted what I have studied or that was of concern for failing to be NPOV, and I am a very critical reader. If anyone has a suggestion for WP:RS for any particular section I may be willing to help add the in-line citations. With more references, I think this article could get a high Wiki rating for quality WP:NPOV articles. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:36, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Trustee Obligations
My textbook indicates that the U.S. Trustee has new obligations, and "must file within ten days of the meeting of creditors indicating whether or not the filing creates a presumed abuse of Chapter 7 under 'needs based bankruptcy'". "If abuse is presumed, then within 30 days...Trustee must file a motion to dismiss or convert or a statement setting forth the reason why no motion is to be filed..." There are a few other obligations noted such as random audits, oversight and monitoring of credit counseling agencies and courses, and further obligations regarding Chapter 11. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:36, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

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referred to in "The Simpsons"
In the episode Rome-Old and Juli-Eh, Homer Simpson is surprised by a new much harsher bankruptcy law recently put in place... AnonMoos (talk) 23:27, 9 April 2020 (UTC)