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How Bankruptcy Stops Your Creditors: The Automatic Stay
- Collection of overpayments of public benefits. If you receive public benefits and were overpaid, normally the agency is entitled to collect the overpayment out of your future checks. The automatic stay prevents this collection. However, if you become ineligible for benefits, the automatic stay doesn't prevent the agency from denying or terminating benefits for that reason.
- Multiple wage garnishments. Filing for bankruptcy stops garnishments dead in their tracks. (And not only will you take home a full salary, but you also may be able to discharge the debt in bankruptcy.) Although no more than 25% of your wages may be taken to satisfy court judgments (up to 50% for child support and alimony), many people file for bankruptcy if more than one wage garnishment is threatened. For some people, any loss of income is devastating; also, some employers get angry at the expense and hassle of facilitating a succession of garnishments and take it out on their employees. Although federal law prohibits you from being fired for one garnishment, an employer can fire you for multiple garnishments.
What the Automatic Stay Cannot Prevent
In a few instances, the automatic stay won't help you.
- Certain tax proceedings. The IRS can still audit you, issue a tax deficiency notice, demand a tax return (which often leads to an audit), issue a tax assessment, or demand payment of such an assessment. However, the automatic stay does stop the IRS from issuing a tax lien or seizing your property or income.
- Support actions. A lawsuit against you seeking to establish paternity or to establish, modify, or collect child support or alimony isn't stopped by your filing for bankruptcy.
- Criminal proceedings. A criminal proceeding that can be broken down into criminal and debt components will be divided, and the criminal component is not affected by the automatic stay. For example, if you were convicted of writing a bad check, sentenced to community service, and ordered to pay a fine, your obligation to do community service won't be stopped by your filing for bankruptcy.
FAQs
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- Right now, I cannot pay my debts. Besides bankruptcy, do I have any options?
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