Bicycles are used everywhere (photo by Marilyn Swanson) By: Donald L Swanson I’ve always maintained that the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (“BAPCPA”) is heavy on “preventing abuses” (mostly phantom abuses) and skinny on “protecting consumers.” IRA Exemption in BAPCPA But there is a consumer protection in the Bankruptcy Code, added by... Continue Reading →

BAPCPA By: Donald L Swanson Back in the mid-1990s, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued two opinions declaring the plain meaning of “projected disposable income” in § 1225(b)(1) to be “absurd” and that the true meaning thereof is, instead, “actual disposable income” determined at the end of the debtor’s confirmed Chapter 12 plan. Such two... Continue Reading →

BAPCPA By: Donald L Swanson Before 1998, (i) all student loans from for-profit lenders were dischargeable in bankruptcy, but (ii) student loans backed by the federal government or from non-profits were dischargeable in only these circumstances: when the student loan “became due more than 7 years . . . before the date of the filing of... Continue Reading →

BAPCPA By: Donald L Swanson BAPCPA harmed honest but unfortunate consumers in these United States.  It did so by moving them out of Chapter 7 bankruptcy and into an unworkable Chapter 13 system that few consumers can use effectively in times of economic stress. That’s a given. But the up-side tradeoff that’s being pitched to us... Continue Reading →

BAPCPA By: Donald L Swanson Under the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (“BAPCPA”): “A person who had a heart attack is treated the same as someone who had a spending spree at the mall”; and So, BAPCPA created a “worsening of the value” of bankruptcy as a means of protecting middle class... Continue Reading →

By: Donald L Swanson Congress enacted the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (“BAPCPA”) on April 14, 2005.  It was signed into law on April 20, 2005.  And it applied to all bankruptcy cases filed after October 17, 2005. So, the year 2025 is the 20th anniversary of all such dates. Regressive Law BAPCPA is... Continue Reading →