Bankruptcy Reform: What's Tax Got To Do With It?

On April 20, 2005, President Bush signed into law the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 ("BAPCPA"), the most sweeping bankruptcy reform legislation passed by Congress in over a quarter of a century. The bill, which spanned over 600 pages, completelyoverhauled the consumer bankruptcy system and made significant changes to business bankruptcies as well. Yet despite Congress's massive effort to improve the current bankruptcy system in BAPCPA, it failed to address a number of important issues in the area of bankruptcy taxation, a critical but often overlooked area of bankruptcy law. One such issue involves the tax consequences of property abandonments in a bankruptcy proceeding.