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By:  Christian Corkery

St. John’s Law Student

American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review Staff

Applying Washington law, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington in In re Huber held that prepetition transfers of the debtor’s assets to a self-settled trust created under Alaska state law were void under Washington law.[1]  The matter before the court involved a debtor who created a self-settled trust in Alaska to protect his assets from creditors.  Because Washington state law does not recognize self-settled trusts, the debtor created the trust in Alaska under Alaska state law, which permits self-settled trusts.  The trust agreement included a choice-of-law provision which stated that Alaska state law would govern all legal disputes.[2]  After the trust was created, the debtor filed for bankruptcy.[3]  The chapter 7 trustee brought an adversary proceeding seeking to recover the assets that the debtor transferred to the self-settled trust and to deny the debtor a discharge.[4]  The court declined to apply Alaska law because Washington had a public policy interest against self-settled trusts, and Alaska did not have a substantial relation to the trust.[5]  The debtor was not domiciled in Alaska, his assets were not located in Alaska, and the trust’s beneficiaries were not domiciled in Alaska.[6]  The court found that Alaska’s only connections were that it was the location of where the trust was to be administered and the location of one of the trustees.[7]  As such, the court applied Washington state law which states that transfers made to self-settled trusts are void as against existing or future creditors, and therefore, the trustee was able to recover the assets.[8]

By: Kimberly Tracey

St. John’s Law Student

American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review Staff

In In re Clark, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit adopted a new approach to the treatment of non-spousal inherited IRAs in bankruptcy cases.  The court reversed the decision of the District Court and found that a debtor could not exempt a non-spousal inherited IRA.[1]  In Clark the debtor sought to exempt an IRA she inherited from creditors’ claims under section 522(b)(3)(C) and (d)(12) of the Bankruptcy Code.[2]  The bankruptcy court held that the inherited IRA was not exempt because the account did not represent retirement funds in the hands of the debtor.[3]  The district court reversed, adopting the view that since the inherited IRA constituted “retirement funds” in the debtor’s mother’s hands, the account must be treated the same way in the debtor’s hands.[4]  Reversing the district court, the Seventh Circuit distinguished a non-spousal inherited IRA as “a time-limited tax-deferral vehicle, but not a place to hold wealth for use after the new owner's retirement.”[5]  Specifically, the Seventh Circuit noted that under the Internal Revenue Code, a non-spousal inherited IRA is subject to mandatory distribution that must begin within a year of the original owner’s death and be completed in no less than five years.[6]  Furthermore, no new contributions may be made to the account.[7]  Consequently, the Seventh Circuit opined that the non-spousal inherited IRA was not a “retirement fund” under the Bankruptcy Code in the hands of the debtor, and as a result, the court held that the non-spousal inherited IRA was not exempt.[8]  In reaching such a holding, the Court declared that “to treat this account as exempt under [section]522(b)(3)(C) and (d)(12) [of the Bankruptcy Code] would allow the debtor to shelter from creditors a pot of money that can be freely used for current consumption.”[9] 

By: Sarah Roe

St. John’s Law Student

American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review Staff

 Recently, in Ranta v. Gorman (In re Ranta), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held “that the plain language of the Bankruptcy Code excludes Social Security income from the calculation of ‘disposable income,’ but that such income nevertheless must be considered in the evaluation of a [chapter 13] plan’s feasibility.”[1]   In Ranta, the chapter 13 trustee objected to the debtor’s proposed plan, arguing that the debtor failed to properly calculate his “projected disposable income” under section 1325(b)(1)(B) of the Bankruptcy Code because he inflated his expenses, improperly reducing his disposable income.[2]  While the debtor acknowledged that his expenses were overstated, he argued that his plan nevertheless complied with section 1325(b)(1)(B) since his Social Security income was excluded from his “disposable income,” and therefore, he argued that his disposable income was negative even after adjusting his expenses downward because his expenses still exceeded his non-Social Security income.[3]  As such, the debtor argued that he was not required to make any payments to his unsecured creditors under section 1325(b)(1)(B).[4] The bankruptcy court ruled in favor of the chapter 13 trustee, holding that the debtor’s plan was not feasible.  The bankruptcy court reasoned that if the debtor’s Social Security income was not included in the projected disposable income calculation, then the court could not consider those funds when determining whether the plan was feasibile.[5]  The district court affirmed.[6]  The Fourth Circuit, however, reversed, holding that although the Social Security income was excluded from the “projected disposable income” calculation, if the chapter 13 debtor proposed to use Social Security income to finance a plan, the bankruptcy court must consider the debtor’s Social Security income when examining a plan’s feasibility.[7]