Skip to main content

%1

Supreme Court Weighs Bankruptcy Discharges for Fraud by a Third Party

Submitted by jhartgen@abi.org on

The Supreme Court will hear a dispute stemming from a San Francisco house-flipping project gone wrong that is expected to determine whether an innocent bankruptcy debtor can wipe out judgments for a fraud carried out by someone else, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The justices elected Monday to hear the case of a married couple who sold a house in 2008 for $2 million without disclosing water leaks and other problems to the buyer. The couple later filed for personal bankruptcy, which the wife has sought to use to discharge the buyer’s judgment against her, saying her husband was primarily responsible for the renovation and that she wasn’t aware of the problems at the time of the sale. The case concerns who is eligible for a fresh financial start through bankruptcy and who isn’t. Although consumers can use bankruptcy to leave overwhelming credit card or medical bills behind, Congress doesn’t let debtors use the process to get out of paying creditors whom they have defrauded. The question the Supreme Court chose to review focuses on whether a debtor can discharge a debt arising from a partner’s fraudulent act that they are jointly liable for. Lawyers for the woman, Kate Bartenwerfer, said in a December court filing the issue is broader than her case and potentially affects joint transactions or partnerships “involving married persons and couples, even the sale of a family home.” The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Ms. Bartenwerfer following earlier trials in California state court and bankruptcy court. The appeals court ruled last August that Ms. Bartenwerfer’s debt isn’t eligible for a bankruptcy discharge “regardless of her knowledge of the fraud.”

Child Tax Credit Expansion Creates Refund Roller Coaster

Submitted by ckanon@abi.org on
Democrats’ expansion of the Child Tax Credit may have expired, but it’s not gone completely. More than 40 million Americans now must contend with it on their annual tax returns, and it’s proving a curveball for many, Politico reported. People who received the monthly Child Tax Credit checks lawmakers created last year may be surprised to see those payments are now reducing or even eliminating their tax refunds. Some divorced people could be upset to learn they weren’t actually eligible for checks they received and now have to pay the money back. At the same time, some will see fatter refunds, particularly the several million who opted out of the monthly payments. So too will people who’ve had babies in the past year. And thanks to a loophole in the law, it’s possible for some to claim bigger child credits than lawmakers intended. The effects on refunds could be a touchy issue for Democrats, potentially putting them on the defensive over one of the biggest achievements of the Biden administration. People love refunds, relying on them as an important part of their budgets, and notice if their payments are smaller than expected or if they suddenly owe the IRS. Some interpret the size of their refunds as an indication of how well they’re faring under the tax system, even though the payments are really just the difference between what is owed and what was withheld from their paychecks. Most people received tax cuts under legislation Democrats approved last year in response to the coronavirus outbreak. The situation for Democrats is reminiscent of the position Republicans were in during the first filing season after their 2017 tax overhaul, when they came under fire because the size of refunds initially dropped before later rebounding to roughly historic levels.