Means Test Violates Uniformity Requirement of the Bankruptcy Code According to Latest ABI Poll

Contact: John Hartgen

            

703-739-0800

            

jhartgen@abiworld.org

MEANS TEST
VIOLATES UNIFORMITY REQUIREMENT OF THE BANKRUPTCY CODE, ACCORDING TO
LATEST ABI
POLL

August 7, 2007, Alexandria,
Va. —A majority of respondents (59 percent) to
ABI’s latest online
poll agreed that the means test established by the Bankruptcy Abuse
Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) violates the
Bankruptcy Code’s uniformity requirement because it relies on two
pieces of data that vary by state. Thirty-four percent of respondents
“strongly agreed” and 25 percent “somewhat
agreed” that the means test, which makes calculations based on a
debtors’ median income levels and IRS expense standards that vary
by state, violates the Bankruptcy Code’s uniformity
requirement.

Thirty-one percent of
respondents, however, did not agree that that the means test established

by BAPCPA violated the Bankruptcy Code’s uniformity requirement.
 Twenty-four percent “strongly disagreed” and 9 percent

“somewhat disagreed” that the means test violated the
Bankruptcy Code because it relied on median income level data and IRS
expense standards that vary by state. Six percent of the respondents did

not know or had no opinion on the issue.

The poll question is based on a

recent decision in which the U.S. District Court for the Eastern
District of Tennessee held that BAPCPA's means testing component did not

violate the Bankruptcy Code's uniformity requirement. The court, in
Schultz v. U.S. (2007 WL 1447892, E.D.Tenn.), noted that the
uniformity requirement does not exclude different results in different
states because of state law variations and that the debtors supplied no
principled reason for concluding that variations resulting from federal
statistics created unconstitutional non-uniformity.  The decision
is currently on expedited appeal before the Sixth Circuit Court of
Appeals.

size='3'>ABI members and members of the public
were welcome to submit their response to the statement: “

face='Times New Roman' color='black'>Because the means test element of
BAPCPA relies on median income levels and IRS expense standards that
vary by state, it violates the Code’s uniformity
requirement. The latest
w:st='on'>ABI Quick Poll was open to the public for
voting from July 27-August 2.

size='3'>ABI’s weekly Quick Poll is posted

on ABI’s home page,
title='http://www.abiworld.org/' href='http://www.abiworld.org/'>
color='#0000ff'>www.abiworld.org.
w:st='on'>ABI members and the public are invited to
respond to a question on a timely bankruptcy or insolvency issue. Visit

href='http://www.abiworld.net/quickpoll/'>
color='#0000ff'>http://www.abiworld.net/quickpoll/ to access
the results of previous ABI
Quick Polls.

###

size='3'>ABI is the largest multi-disciplinary,
nonpartisan organization dedicated to research and education on matters
related to insolvency. ABI
was founded in 1982 to provide Congress and the public with unbiased
analysis of bankruptcy issues. The
w:st='on'>ABI membership includes nearly 11,500
attorneys, accountants, bankers, judges, professors, lenders, turnaround

specialists and other bankruptcy professionals, providing a forum for
the exchange of ideas and information. For additional information on
ABI, visit www.abiworld.org.
For additional conference information, visit
title='http://www.abiworld.org/conferences.html'
href='http://www.abiworld.org/conferences.html'>
color='#0000ff'>http://www.abiworld.org/conferences.html.