General

Why File Chapter 11 Bankruptcy?

What type of long-term relief may a debtor obtain under Chapter 11? – Bankruptcy is not a thing most people want to do and admiring your finances and debts have reached a state where bankruptcy is needed can be hard. However, it is important to remember that hiring a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Lawyer for Individuals often is the best solution to the existing issues you are having. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help people and often the reasons you find yourself in a bad financial situation could very well be to situations outside your control. You should not have to endure years of debt due to circumstances such as health concerns or economic conditions and bankruptcy exist to help you get things under control.

Chapter 11 Versus Other Types of Bankruptcy

There are many types of bankruptcy a person can file. Chapter 7 is one of the most popular and well-known bankruptcy options. Chapter 7 chiefly works by liquidating all your assets for capital and using the acquired money to pay down your debt with any remaining debt usually written off. While Chapter 7 is useful if the person doesn’t have a high level of assets this isn’t true of everyone. Chapter 11 can work better as it can help you protect assets while still organizing your debt.

Chapter 13 is a type of bankruptcy that works for people with predictable future income. It works by allowing the filer to pay down their debt via monthly payments for a set period of three or five years. An advantage of Chapter 13 is that if the debt is paid off within the proper timeframe assets do not have to be liquidated. A downside of Chapter 13 is it has debt limits meaning it only works in certain situations. Chapter 11 is a better option if you have a higher level of debt making Chapter 13 unfeasible and Chapter 11 allows you to keep some of your assets.

Long Term Debt Relief Under Chapter 11

When filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy you gain several benefits that allow you to get your debt under control and allow you to better manage it. An advantage of Chapter 11 is there is no cap on your debt (unlike Chapter 13) and there is no means-testing to be eligible for Chapter 11.

Some areas where Chapter 11 can help you include the following.

1. Mortgage Payments

Due to financial stressors, you can easily fall behind on mortgage payments for your home or residence. Other types of bankruptcy may not be practical for saving your home as Chapter 7 can cause it to be lost as an asset sale and Chapter 13 has a hard cap on the repayment timeframe. When filing under Chapter 11 you can reorganize your debt past a five-year threshold allowing you more time to recover from bankruptcy and get your finances back under your control.

2. Automobile Liens

Another area of debt where a Chapter 12 bankruptcy can help is with the existing automobile lien. Under a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, your automobile could be valued at a higher rate due to its purchase price without deprecation being taken under consideration. Under a Chapter 11 filing, your lien is valued at your automobile’s price at the time the petition is filed. This can help reduce what is owned while also being fair.

3. Recent Debt Discharge

If you’ve been having financial problems over a long enough period, you could have an existing Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy on your record. Refiling a bankruptcy can be a challenge as Chapter 7 only allows refilling after four years and a Chapter 13 bankruptcy only allows a filing after two years. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy can allow you to refile your finical issues under a different bankruptcy saving your assets and allowing you to reorganize your debt.

4. Managing Non-Dischargeable Debt

Not every type of debt can be filed under bankruptcy. Debts that noticeably can’t be declared under bankruptcy include alimony, child support, payroll taxes, and other types of debt and taxes. An area where a Chapter 11 filing can help with non-dischargeable debt is with tax penalties and fees. When you owe the IRS money fees and penalties can quickly accumulate greatly increasing the amount owed. Luckily, a Chapter 11 filing can stop these extra fees from occurring, and in some circumstances, your lawyer may be able to negotiate a settlement removing your tax debt and saving you a great deal of money.

5. Reorganization of Debt

One of the key advantages of bankruptcy is organizing your debt and clearly defining a payment plan to eliminate it and get your finances back on good footing. An advantage of a Chapter 11 filing is that it offers more flexibility in how your debt is reorganized. Plus can also make use of a much longer timeframe allowing you the time to get your debt paid off without stress on your finances as you recover, by comparison, Chapter 13 filings have time limits of either three or five years.

Why You Need a Lawyer

When you need finical assistance and are considering bankruptcy a skilled lawyer can help. When you hire an attorney, they manage several key aspects of your filing including negotiations with your creditors and those you owe, helping prepare a petition, helping set up a trustee, handling paperwork such as proof of claim, and meeting with your creditors to finalize the repayment terms and process. A bankruptcy filing is an involved process with set dates during the process having skilled legal representation ensures everything is done promptly and correctly.

Events That Bring People Together While Encouraging Social Distancing – It’s part of our human nature to connect with others. So why does connection matter?

A May 2021 article in the New York Times gives us a glimpse into an answer. The article explores a secret ingredient in what people miss the most about enjoying a meal at a restaurant. It turns out that it isn’t the food.

What people truly missed was “the random thrill of seeing other people.”

As more people get vaccinated, there will be more opportunities for small but meaningful moments like this. A simple smile can brighten someone’s day. And when they smile back, it also lifts your spirits. Other types of social events can also help us fulfill our need to feel connected. In addition, in these pandemic times, you can Plan complex student events, but one thing to be kept in mind is that you have to Encourage Social Distancing Signs

Here are three types of events that let people spend time together while allowing social distancing to happen.

1. Organize a golf outing

A golf outing allows players to enjoy a round of golf on beautifully designed landscapes. There can be individuals or, more commonly, foursomes (teams of four). Social distancing happens since players are spread out by time and distance. For instance, a group of friends can tee off on hole one at a specific time and then move on to the next hole. Then an individual or another group can start on hole one at the following allocated time.

The combination of reserved tee times, proximity, and open-air help keep players safe. But before players can participate, they need a way to register ahead of time.

Here are examples of the types of registration options that you can offer with an event registration system:

– Individual registration

– Foursome (4 players)

Once a player starts a registration, your event registration tool can collect contact details, process a payment, and send a confirmation email for your golf outing.

Did you know that you can also raise funds through a golf outing?

You can offer sponsorship opportunities alongside the player or team registrations. Here are a couple of examples:

– Sell a sponsorship for each hole.

– Sell sponsorships for the beverage carts.

Now your golf event can raise funds for a local charity while letting players enjoy a round of golf for a good cause.

Next, we’ll talk about another social event that raises funds.

2. Plan an annual gala dinner fundraiser

An annual gala dinner does several things simultaneously. First, it brings together members of your organization to celebrate your mission over a delicious dinner. Second, it recognizes specific people or businesses who have supported your organization. Third, it raises funds so your organization can continue to do meaningful work.

A fundraising dinner could offer different types of ticket options like these:

– Individual registration

– Tables (e.g., register eight guests at once)

– A basic sponsorship opportunity (multiple are available)

– Another sponsorship opportunity (a few are available)

– An exclusive sponsorship opportunity

By offering flexible ticket options, you are giving people the opportunity to support your work. For example, someone can pick up an individual registration while a local company may choose to purchase a table for employees. Then you are also offering various sponsorship levels which will help you exceed your fundraising goals.

What kind of sponsorships should you offer?

Looking at what has worked in the past is a great place to start. Specifically, look for patterns around the sponsorships or donations for past fundraisers.

“When charities ask you for a donation, they typically offer you a range of options such as $100, $250, $1,000, $5,000, or other. If the charity’s fundraisers have an idea of what they are doing, these values are not picked at random, because the options influence the amount of money people decide to donate,” wrote Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in Nudge. “People will give more if the options are $100, $250, $1,000, and $5,000, than if the options are $50, $75, $100, and $150.”

Plus, if someone cannot attend, they can still choose one of your sponsorship options to show support.

3. Host a church service

Church services bring together members around a common purpose. Remember that connection matters, regardless of the type of religion. Like the New York Times article mentioned at the beginning of this article — members can get a sense of joy by seeing faces again.

You can organize church services with safety in mind by using an event registration tool. Here are a few ways that an event registration tool can help:

– Limit the number of members that can register for a specific service.

– Ask answers to questions to meet your protocols.

– Send unique tickets that can be scanned with a mobile phone for fast check-in.

– Remind church members about your safety guidelines for masks and handwashing.

And there is another benefit of church services. In the words of the author and psychologist Barry Schwarz: “People who participate in religious communities are happier than those who do not. Being connected to others seems to be much more important to subjective well-being than being rich.”

By hosting church services, you’ll help your members feel joy from being part of something greater than themselves.

Three event ideas that allow people to feel connected again while allowing social distancing are:

1. Organize a golf outing
2. Plan an annual gala dinner fundraiser
3. Host a church service

Malcolm Gladwell, an author of several New York Times bestsellers, points out that we do similar activities with people that we like. “We’re friends with people we do things with, as much as the people we resemble,” wrote Gladwell in The Tipping Point.

Events bring people together so they can do activities that they find enjoyable.

Do you need to set up event registration for an upcoming event? Take a look at Event Espresso’s event registration guide, where you’ll learn the four keys of an event registration system.

Workers Compensation Coverage – If you have employees, you will need to buy workers compensation coverage to protect them. It does not matter if they work part-time, some time or one time. The law says they must be protected from injury while they are doing work for you.

Oh, and if you think you can pay someone on 1099, call him an independent contractor and not have to pay workers comp on him, you may be in for a surprise. There are specific guidelines for who is an independent contractor, and they are narrow. Just because he receives a 1099, he could still be an employee. Ask your agent for help on this one. It could cost you at audit time when actual payrolls are reviewed.

What does Workers Comp coverage work?

Workers Comp coverage pays wage replacement benefits and medical reimbursement if you are injured. It also pays disability payments and a small amount of death payments.

There are two main criteria for the amount that an employer might pay for his workers comp premium. Firstly, there is a rate. Each type of job has a risk factor. Office workers have a lower risk factor than firefighters. Companies evaluate their risk tolerance and ability to market to whichever segment of the business community they may want to approach. Not every company wants to write firefighters, they may only want to write small retail businesses. Once the company determines its preferences, it files a base rate with the state and must stick to that rate. They may also file rate modification criteria which would give them a leeway of up to 25%, for example. Machine safety risk assessment If there is enough premium to warrant it, the workers comp bureau may also evaluate a particular business to see if its losses are better or worse than expected and then assign a modifier of its own, called an experience modification.

How are rates expressed?

The rates are expressed as a number which is a factor per $100 of payroll. So, a rate of 5.00 might be applied to a payroll of $100,000 to get a raw rate of $5000 of premium. This rate might then be further modified up or down depending on the discounts and the experience modification. So with a 25% discount applied by the insurance company and a 20% discount resulting from a good “xmod” the premium would be $3000. If there are losses, you might lose the discount and have a 1.25 x-mod and pay $6250 instead.

State Compensation Insurance Fund

If there is a poor loss record, a lapse in coverage or a type of business considered too risky for most workers comp companies, the court of last resort (in California) is the State Compensation Insurance Fund—SCIF.) Some states only have a SCIF and no private carriers. In any case, SCIF cannot decline to insure a company that wants coverage and complies with the requests, but they can charge and surcharge. Oh, Yes.

At the end of a policy year, the workers comp carrier will perform an audit. This makes sure that they charged the correct premium. They may ask for financial statements to show actual payrolls, or just ask for a simple form to be completed. If you underestimated payroll for the year, expect an invoice. If you overestimated, there will be a refund.

The employer must allow them to proceed with this audit process. If not, the carrier may want to make sure that your actual payroll was not more than your estimated payroll at the beginning of the policy period. So, they add 10% to 20% to the bill just to make sure. it’s legal.

Avoiding claims is critical. Keeping a clean, uncluttered business location with an eye toward what can happen to cause injury is important. Having safety meetings is important. Safety communication with employees is important. Even then, employees do bonehead things and the employer is the one to suffer.

A client of mine had a machine shop with large presses which stamp down on pieces of metal in order to form them. According to standards, such machines are to have a number of safeguards. There must be a yellow line around the machine, within which only the operator is allowed to stand while working the machine. This is to prevent distractions.

Another safeguard is the placement of handholds out of the way of the machinery’s working components so that the machine will only operate when the operator’s hands are clear of the press. If you are a machine operator in a hurry to produce your parts, you may be tempted to circumvent that safeguard. This particular operator taped the safety switch in place so he did not need to place his hands on it and out of the way of the press. His hand was in the way when the press came down. This resulted in a three-fingered operator and a large workers compensation claim. There are many other situations that can result in a claim, so safety should be top of mind for every employer, even those with only clerical staff. An employee can throw out her back by just bending or lifting incorrectly. Instruction on how to safely lift even lightweight items is important.