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The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 requires the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to submit an annual report to Congress on certain bankruptcy statistics. The report for calendar year 2010 is now available.
The report, which includes multiple charts and an interactive map, shows that more 1.5 million bankruptcy petitions were filed by individuals with predominately nonbusiness debt in 2010 – an increase of 9 percent over 2009.
About 71 percent of those petitions were filed under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, the same percentage as in 2009. Under Chapter 7, a debtor’s assets are liquidated and the nonexempt proceeds are distributed to the debtor’s creditors.
About 28 percent of the 2010 petitions were filed under Chapter 13, in which individuals who have regular income and debts below a statutory threshold make installment payments to creditors under a court-approved plan. The remaining 1 percent of the petitions were filed under Chapter 11, which allows debtors to formulate plans for repaying creditors
