How Can Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Affect Your Job
When you decide to file for bankruptcy, you will be more than entitled to be worried about the way this fact will influence your position at work in front of your employer. The bankruptcy you want to file for can affect the employment status in two ways: it may not act into your favor when looking to get hired and secondly, it can affect the benefits one might have as an employee.
Apart from this you have to take into account the Chapter 7 bankruptcy and the way your credit report would look like. You should imagine that more employers are requiring nowadays for a credit report when they perform an interview for a job especially when the job has to do with financial departments and money management.
Keep in mind that for a period of 10 years the status of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy will still be visible inside your credit report. A tax lawyer park slope might be able to explain everything!
There is however a federal law saying that an employer is not allowed to hire once a potential employee had ever filed for bankruptcy. Nevertheless, an employer has any right to question your judgment and responsibility to handle money in a position that involves these tasks.
In case you want to get hires in this sort of position, the there are some things you can do to secure your position:
1. Ask for a copy of your credit report and fix any mistake that can appear in there. If some debts that you have been spared of through the bankruptcy still appear in the report, call the credit report agency and ask them to make a note next to the amount reading “included in bankruptcy”.
2. Try to do all your best and liquidate any debt that stands out and hasn’t been discharged by the bankruptcy. In this way you can prove to the potential employer that you have learned from your mistakes and have done your best to be more responsible; this can definitely be beneficial to the job interview.
3. Do not try to say anything else but the truth. Be ready to answer the questions regarding the bankruptcy and how this one has made you change your life allowing you to learn from your own mistakes and prove that you grow into a responsible mature person.
How can you still have your employee benefits with a history of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy? According to federal law you can not use certain property, such as employment retirement accounts, in order to pay off an outstanding debt with Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. These accounts and their amounts as well are seen as being ‘exempt’ for other usage under the federal laws.
However, you should check with the pension and 401 (k) in your contract and see if there is an ‘anti-alienation’ clause related to these accounts. If not, consult with a tax lawyer ny to see about how they are protected in Chapter 7 Bankruptcy situation.
