In Re Briscoe’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 2 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The first question for the court is whether Congress intended for debtors to use the Local Standards as fixed deductions in the calculation of disposable income for above median-income debtors or intended for courts to apply the Local Standards in a manner consistent with the Financial Analysis Handbook, which directs that “taxpayers will be allowed the local standard or the amount actually paid, whichever is less.” IRM § 5.15.1.7(4). If Congress intended the former course of action, the court must then consider whether the debtor’s calculation of current monthly income on Official Form 22C controls the calculation of her “projected disposable income” for purposes of § 1325(b)(1). Finally, if the court finds that the debtor’s current monthly income as derived from Official Form 22C dictates the debtor’s “projected disposable income” under § 1325(b)(1), it must decide whether a chapter 13 plan of repayment that provides less funding to unsecured creditors than the debtor could actually afford satisfies the requirement of § 1325(a) that the plan “be proposed in good faith.” 11 U.S.C. § 1325 (a)(3).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Phillips

2. “The provision at issue refers to “applicable monthly expense amounts specified under the ... Local Standards,” 11 U.S.C. § 707 (b)(2)(A)(ii)(I), not “applicable monthly expense amounts specified under the Financial Analysis Handbook of the Internal Revenue Manual” or, more simply, “applicable monthly expense amounts specified under the Internal Revenue Manual.” This is not a trivial distinction. As Judge Wedoff notes in a comprehensive article on the means-testing provisions imposed by BAPCPA, the Local Standards (along with the National Standards) are not located within the Financial Analysis Handbook at all, but rather are found separately on the IRS’s website. Eugene R. Wedoff, Means Testing in the New § 707(b), 79 Am. Bankr.L.J. 231, 254 (2005). Thus, the reference in § 707(b)(2) to the Local Standards is not a shorthand way of referring to the Financial Analysis Handbook, but rather denotes an entirely separate source of information.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Phillips

3. “The provisions of the Financial Analysis Handbook dictating how that data should be used are not so malleable. They are instructions directed at a specific audience (tax collectors) for a spe-eific purpose (collecting delinquent taxes). Assuming that Congress did not intend for debtors and the courts and trustees that oversee them to become amateur tax collectors, it would be much odder for Congress to have imported the IRS’s internal collection procedures into the Bankruptcy Code than for Congress to have referred to the objective data used in applying those procedures without requiring debtors to follow the procedures themselves.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Phillips