Understanding Non-Dischargeable Debts in Oklahoma Bankruptcy
Non-Dischargeable Debts
Hello everybody, Edward Kelley here, your bankruptcy lawyer in Oklahoma, and today in our three minutes to financial freedom, we’re going to talk about non-dischargeable debts. What does that mean and what are they?
Well, what it means is they can’t be gotten rid of in the bankruptcy. What happens at the end of a successful bankruptcy, chapter seven, is that you receive a discharge. True of a chapter 13, although it’s a longer road to get there. A discharge means not exactly that the debt goes away, but it means that that creditor can never collect that debt and that it will drop off of your credit report as uncollectible and will eventually vanish. And the discharge is what you’re going for.
Certain debts, however, are absolutely not dischargeable and some debts are non-dischargeable in certain situations. So what am I talking about?
Types of Non-Dischargeable Debts
The big one, child support, and you can understand why that would be. Child support is never dischargeable in a bankruptcy. Non-dischargeable debt. At the end of your bankruptcy, any child support debt will remain as it was before you started.
Another non-dischargeable, everybody knows this one too, student loans, and by that I mean federally backed student loans. If you take out a loan and use it for school, but it’s not federally backed, you could still get rid of it. But the government has protected itself. It’s the one loaning you the money, so it’s not going to let itself be defaulted or bankrupted upon in a bankruptcy. Pretty unfair. Not something I agree with, but that’s the way it is.
Another one that is pretty much always non-dischargeable are criminal fines and restitution. Certain civil penalties, certain civil, your city charging you because your yard is in bad shape. There’s a few exceptions. Some of those you can discharge, but by and large, if you get a criminal conviction, you’re ordered to pay restitution, court costs and fines, cannot discharge those in bankruptcy.
Tax Debt and Dischargeability
Okay, and there’s a few that are dischargeable sometimes and sometimes aren’t. Primarily tax debt. If it’s three years or older from the time it was filed, so not necessarily when it was incurred, but when it was filed, three years or older can be discharged, dischargeable. Three years or younger, not dischargeable. So again, you could have taxes from 1965, but if you just filed them in 2022, you’re going to have to wait three years, i.e. 2025, to discharge them.
However, a lot of people are happily shocked to learn that a lot of their old tax debt is dischargeable. So as long as you filed it in that year, three years from the date of filing, and that could be April 15th or October if you got an extension, that is dischargeable. If it’s younger than that, non-dischargeable.
So that’s an overview of non-dischargeable debt, and obviously when you file a 7, you want to take a close look at what’s dischargeable and what isn’t, and that’s what I’m here for. So as always, you can reach me at oklahomacitybankruptcyattorney.pro.
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So that’s an overview of non-dischargeable debt, and obviously when you file a 7, you want to take a close look at what’s dischargeable and what isn’t, and that’s what I’m here for. So as always, you can reach me at oklahomacitybankruptcyattorney.pro.