Did you know that certain types of debt and financial obligations cannot be discharged when filing for bankruptcy?  There are debts that are exempt from bankruptcy laws and you need to pay them whether or not you file for bankruptcy protection.

One financial obligation that can’t be discharged through bankruptcy is child support.  You are required to pay for child support by court order and filing for bankruptcy does not mean that you can stop paying it.

An IRS lien is expempt from being discharged by bankruptcy. What happens with an IRS lien is that you owe income tax payments from one or multiple years. At a certain amount of money owed, the IRS will put a lien on your house or some other type of asset that you own, or in lieu of that possibility, may garnish your wages via your employer. This type of IRS lien, in addition to being exempt from a bankruptcy discharge, is also on your credit report for about 10 years as a huge blemish, which would be in addition to the blemish on your credit report from your bankruptcy filing. These types of red flags on your credit report can make it more difficult to get approved for new credit in the future.

A court order, which may have awarded an individual or company a specific amount ofmoney through a lawsuit brought against you is not a debt exempt from bankruptcy either.

If you are behind in one or more debts with your creditors, those creditors will commonly file a lawsuit against you eventually.  This takes time and most creditors are not quick to go to this extreme to collect their money but in time it will most likely happen.  If this type of lawsuit occurs before bankruptcy, it will not be discharged after bankruptcy is filed.  If you have creditors with a judgment against you, filing for bankruptcy may not do much for you.

Government loans such as federal student loans are also exempt from bankruptcy discharge.