Personal Bankruptcy Filings Soar

From the Wall Street Journal:

Consumer bankruptcies topped one million for the first nine months of this year, the highest point since the system was overhauled in 2005.

The number of personal bankruptcy filings for the nine months rose to 1,046,449 as of Sept. 30, the American Bankruptcy Institute, an organization made up of attorneys, accountants and other bankruptcy professionals, said Friday, using data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center. There were 773,810 personal bankruptcy filings for the same time period in 2008.

September's filings reached 124,790, 41% higher than the same month last year.

The 2005 revamp was intended to make it harder for Americans to shed their debts by filing for bankruptcy. In that year, before the law took effect, there were 1.35 million bankruptcy filings in the first nine months.

But a tough economic climate has sent filings soaring again and ABI expects personal bankruptcies to exceed 1.4 million by the end of the year. "Bankruptcy filings continue to climb as consumers look to shelter themselves from the effects of rising unemployment rates and housing debt," the institute's Executive Director Samuel J. Gerdano said.

Bankruptcy Filings Up 35 Percent In Past Year: Court

According to data compiled through US courts, bankruptcy filings in the U.S. have gone up a staggering 35% over the last year. Last year there were about 968,000 people who filed for Bankruptcy, compared to over 1.3 million in just the past 11 months.

Business bankruptcies, like the high-profile collapse of General Motors Co. GM.UL and Chrysler LLC, totaled 55,000, while non-business filings totaled 1.25 million, the courts office said.

Filings increased among all types of bankruptcies.

Chapter 7 filings, which require debtors to sell their nonexempt property, rose 47 percent to 908,000.

Chapter 13 filings, which enable wage earners to come up with a plan to repay debtors, rose 12 percent to 384,000.

Chapter 11 filings, used to reorganize bankrupt businesses, rose 91 percent to 14,000.

Chapter 12 filings, used by farmers or fishermen, rose 34 percent to 422.

Continued at Reuters.com…

IRS Extends Deadline for Filing

Recently the IRS announced that the deadline for filing 2006 tax returns, or paying any taxes that are due, would be pushed to April 17th. The extension was made because the 15th falls on a Sunday, and the 16th is a holiday in the District of Columbia. Originally the extended deadline only applied to the District of Columbia and six other states that are served by the Massachusetts processing facility. However, this year the April 17th deadline will apply to everyone. For more information check out AccountingWeb.