The Magazine of the Los Angeles County Bar Association
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Discharging Unpaid Income Taxes in Bankruptcy – Some Now, Some Later, Some Never
INSOLVENCY INSIGHTS (REEDER LAW CORPORATION) AUGUST 2021
There is no moratorium keeping the IRS and FTB from enforcing tax obligations against the taxpayer’s assets. Is bankruptcy a possible solution for one who has accumulated unpaid income tax debt? For the taxing agencies, it’s collection as usual, regardless of Covid. Various moratoria, and the on-again, off-again status of the courts, have eased the traditional pressures on...
read moreMajor Increase in California Homestead Exemption
Insolvency insights (Reeder Law Corporation) February 2021
Up to 600% increase in the amount of personal residence equity that can be shielded by the California homestead exemption: a gamechanger The homestead exemption numbers On January 1, 2021, an unprecedented increase in the California homestead exemption passed by the Assembly and signed by the Governor in late 2020, went into effect. The amount of equity in a personal residence that...
read moreNinth Circuit Warms to Cannabis Bankruptcy Cases
Insolvency Insights (Reeder Law Corporation) September 2019
It isn't often that we get to watch a new multibillion-dollar industry grow up literally under our noses. Examples from the past, such as electric utilities, were accompanied by doubts regarding whether the model could really work. The meteoric rise of the tech industry was accompanied by understandability problems (what do you do with those things?). By contrast, the cannabis trade is an...
read moreThe Law of Recovery of Preferential Transfers: “Can They Really Do This?”
Valensi Rose, PLC Insolvency Newsletter June 2018
No area of bankruptcy law is less understood, and causes more shock and upset, than the law pertaining to the recovery of preferential transfers, referred to as “preferences”. The first time a business is exposed to the law of preferences is usually when it receives an unpleasant letter, or a complaint initiating a lawsuit, demanding the return of a payment the business received on a...
read moreRetail bankruptcies and history-in-the making
Valensi Rose, PLC Insolvency Newsletter May 2017
Bricks and Mortar on the Skids It is not often that we see history unfolding before our eyes. News, yes, we have plenty of that. But seeing a real, live shift in how business is done, complete with the exit of many household name firms from the scene, is to witness history, nothing less. The list of retail bankruptcies in the past 24 months includes everything from trendy retailers which catered...
read moreThere are some limits to fees in bankruptcy cases
Los Angeles Daily Journal June 2015
The zero-intensive nature of professional fees in chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and the ongoing concern expressed by commentators bring to mind the line by the great Will Rodgers about the weather: "Everyone talks about it, but nobody does anything about it." On Monday, however, in Baker Botts LLP v. ASARCO LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court did something about professional fees. The issue was whether, in...
read moreBitcoins: Wave of the Future, or Laurel and Hardy Start a Currency System?
Reederlaw Report March 2014
Laurel and Hardy, for the uninitiated, were a 1920s comedy duo whose claim to fame was that everything they undertook fell flat. But it fell flat hilariously. So it may be with bitcoins. One of the more interesting financial developments in recent years has been the rise and at least partial fall of the bitcoin enterprise. In short, bitcoins are a "peer to peer" payment system, digital currency,...
read moreJudicial Opinions Provide a Path to Life Long Learning
Los Angeles Daily Journal January 30, 2013
Many of us have thought that judicial opinions, the written pronouncements of bankruptcy courts, district courts, Courts Of Appeal and the United States Supreme Court, were, at best, to be endured, and at worst, to be foisted off onto associates for review and the “heavy work.” A broader view is in order. Lurking within judicial opinions is all the information that you ever need to know on...
read moreJurisdiction Questions to Plague Bankruptcy Courts
Los Angeles Daily Journal January 18, 2013
You’ve heard of the 100-year flood and the 20-year cicada cycle. The bankruptcy world is now experiencing the most recent onset of the 30-year bankruptcy jurisdiction crisis. This crisis affects the nation’s busiest court system. Questions over its jurisdiction and power go to the very ability of the bankruptcy courts to carry out the business of the bankruptcy system. The cycle started...
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