It used to be that a medical degree was a ticket to a relatively secure life: in exchange for spending years achieving at school and amassing formidable learning, and just showing up at your practice for 50 or more hours a week Read more >>
Blog
Bankruptcy Is a Form Of Redemption, Not Failure
I like to say that I am involved in “capitalist recycling.” In a capitalist, free-market society, there are people who win and there are people who lose. Those people who do not win and cannot function economically because of crushing debt Read more >>
What Doctors Taught Me About My Job and My Clients
In the last three years, my wife and I have lost three of our four parents: two parents died of lung cancer, one of Parkinson’s Disease. In each case, I was Read more »
Judge Riblet on the Absolute Priority Rule
The Absolute Priority Rule is an arcane part of the Bankruptcy Code (see 11 USC § 1129(b)(2)(B)(ii)). It says that, in a Chapter 11 plan, lower classes of creditors cannot be paid anything unless higher classes have either been paid in full Read more >>
Tax Debt Lowered from $513,000 to $30,000!
“Impossible,” you’re probably thinking. But it’s not. Here’s why. My client knew he had $200,000 in tax debt, only $30,000 of which was income tax debt; the remaining $170,000 was Read more »
Lenny Dykstra Sentenced for Bankruptcy Fraud
He had a great mansion in Lake Sherwood, near Thousand Oaks, but when his financial-services firm fell apart, so did his life. Baseball legend Lenny Dykstra, who went through bankruptcy in 2009 (claiming about $25 million in assets and $37 million in debts), thought he could hide assets Read more >>
Not Even Lindsay Lohan Can Hide From the IRS – Nor Can You
Lohan’s Tax Troubles The IRS has seized Lindsay Lohan’s bank accounts. It appears that she owes about $233,000 in back taxes. Her buddy Charlie Sheen, who knows something about becoming a public train wreck, gifted Read more »
Why Hiding Information In Bankruptcy Isn’t Good Strategy
Attorneys often try to hide a client’s information, disclosing as little as possible. This legal strategy sometimes has comical effects, as in this exchange I heard in a deposition:Read more >>
Filing Bankruptcy If Debtor No Longer Lives in US
I had an American client who lived in Europe – Luxembourg, of all places. He moved because his business ventures in the US were going bad. His wife was from Luxembourg, so the family moved close to his in-laws Read more >>
Why We’ll Never See Tax Reform
I’ve always maintained that Congress will never reform the Tax Code toward simplicity. Here is a scholarly article that says just that: the power to tax, and to keep changes Read more »