it's thank you and that's to you as a chapter thirteen trustee and somebody who along with chapter thirteen trustees around the country really makes this system work there's an awful lot in your argument that i think is indicative of your commitment to the job and your view about how the system on to work and we want to take that very seriously i think you can probably assume that you know given our day jobs as bankruptcy judges and we deal with chapter thirteen as all of us you are at some level preaching to acquire on that one so i'm not telling you what you should or shouldn't say i'll tell you you don't have three people skeptical about the worth of anything you do and in my mind that is a fascinating statutory construction problem and you are free to take a rib you want but you know you've got people who are well aware of the how hard you work in the value of what you provide to the system  ok well that may please the court good morning your honors my name of course is kathleen mcallister and i am the chapter thirteen trustee for the district if i don't go and issue before the court today is the is the issue of the compensation of standing chapter thirteen trustees you know if you made a big payment in a chapter twelve case you know in that case did not go any further that you were subject to losing that trust the trustees percentage of fees on that payment and chapter thirteen dollars debtors are required to make their payments monthly they're supposed to making payments within thirty days of filing and chapter twelve those payments are voluntary they're not always do prior to the file so the confirmation of a plan and the other thing at chapter twelve is there's those payments could be really  that debtor could sell a one hundred thousand dollars piece of equipment and and turn over a large sum of money so i look at one thousand two hundred and twenty six dollars as more of a notice to the debtors that you know this could happen well i guess the issue in my view is a and eighty six what was congress do it and i know you're saying it's a notice issue but to me it's a little deeper than that and the nd part of the question for me is is it rational for us to think of five  dollars as totally decided not just the administrative question how much should the fees be what should the ceiling be what should happen if that's exceeded and we can get to the refund issue in a minute or two i bet you well i've got a couple questions about that but not only all that but how should it be disposed of once we're in a chapter twelve or thirteen case in my view the nd piece of this is harder for me to grass in and maybe that's because i may be the fundamental issue is i'm maybe not where you want me to be in terms of what collect i mean they collect doesn't necessarily mean collect and pay but i mean to me i see i see a very logical there is dream what congress is trying to do in five eighty six what i think it's trying to do in the bankruptcy code and to me there are two different issues so i've asked you a lot of questions and i'm going to go ahead and take a whack at it ok well i guess what i was trying to say is and you know i think that congress  the fee were payable separately to the trustee i would see that much more easily given that it derives from a payment that's going to go to creditors and that will not go to creditors if the case isn't confirmed i have a harder time with that think i understand and wish i could frame a better argument i just think it's what's makes the statutes have harmony you know to have a different result is a bad thing sure you know and i  think that congress didn't anticipate that trustees would have to give those fees back because otherwise how do we find our offices you know part of the basis you know when when congress set up chapter thirteen dollars it was set up to be for self funding  and the percentage b was the way that they they got to get to that because you know that way all the debtors would make a payment and it wasn't just you know if there was a small case that had payments of fifty dollars a month that we could say you we can administer this case for you so i think it was a way to bring bankers think of c relief to all the debtors by making itself funding and to not have the trustee it be allowed to keep those fees means that those debtors that you know didn't come to the bankruptcy court with it with a good plan a feasible plan with good intentions you know they're getting a free ride why they're getting yeah and they're getting it on the backs of the cases where the debtors you know in intending for what and we all know there's debtors that come to this court that are just trying to buy time for a long modification ok you know why why recounting goes back to five maybe six as if the five hundred and six payment wasn't already taken by the trustee so that's where there seems to be some income in congruity among the statutes so maybe you could help us trustee was paid their fees on just st minutes and what that resulted in was a lot of trustees that had offices that had a lot of fun sitting in the bank but they couldn't take those funds to pay their their their expenses until those cases got confirmed and so that money just sat there and so when they did the one thousand nine hundred and eighty six act they recognized that that was a problem and that's why that said in five hundred and eighty six clearly the trust you'll take their payments on receipts and so that way the money came right into our office so that we could deposit those funds in our expense account and we could pay our salaries our rent you know of course all the expenses that go with running an office and i think you know that's where his one thousand three hundred and twenty six b says you know we'll collect those funn before at the time oh we'll that answer question i think so i mean i've i'm sympathetic to your position and my understanding is be you might be a tiny question rather than an absolute you know a determination of what money is you're holding as much as it is saying you have yet to pay before you can disperse money to creditors under the case or you have to you have to get paid as you just person my adequate protection payments you know how is it fair that i should make out of protection payments to creditors take that liability and put those claims make the just st spent crawled those expenses and then if the debtor turns around a month later and says you know i really don't want to be here now not only do i have to refund the debtor you know he's the money that i'm still holding at that i'm holding but i should go back and take the fee that i took on those payments and give that back to the debtor you know i just don't think that's appropriate and i don't think that's what yourself why why couldn't it just as easily mean make sure it's there on receipts as in you're not going to have to go trace of later what about collect means basically payers self because it is the chapter thirteen fund i don't i don't i don't doubt it's a really good what in the language dictates that result in your mind well how does collect receipts mean anything other than make sure you get an amount equal to so that you are you will be able to do this thing the code says you're supposed to do as opposed to do it now well i think that's what they tried to do when they added that word because if they don't have that then i have to sit on those funds i think what you're suggesting is that ok i make sure the money's there but i don't pull it out of the case and then later down the road if the plan gets confirmed then i have those funds in there i get let me let me put it this way i'm not saying i don't think the  suggesting that you're not describing something that nobody would be very happy with you know but but you know the question is i'm not finding facts here i'm just looking at the statue and i don't feel quite as view the word collect has a cognizance in in a language that is substantially different than retained in whole or possess or you know maintain an account with that's not what's going on here right i guess i and i think some of the spectrum i would say i'm not convinced collect means players and i mean i wish congress had used a better word but i'm mean that's what i'm struggling with and i have to respectfully disagree i think that sentence which reads such individuals shall pay to the united states trustee in the united states trustee shall the posit don't assume issue collect isn't there an equal obligation to pay to the united states trustee doesn't that mean that it's not a hold see what happens situation that nd sentence is imposing an affirmative obligation to in certain situations where the percentages work to pay the united states  smaller and of those one hundred and eighty five cases seventy two of them dismissed prior to confirmation eighty five or eight of them converted to chapter seven prior to confirmation so forty three percent of my dad hers didn't have  annual report to the trust to the u s trustee that i created for the october that was due in october of this year and also you know filed with the u s trustee for statute well are a little over a time but i don't want to cut anybody off because th i i am having trouble with that concept what i mean from your perspective you know i'm asking you to defend the other side but there's nothing that suggests that a fee is revokable a fee especially in a self funded program that's the sign to essentially pay to play seems anathema i mean you can come in and it will hold your deposit and if you don't like what's going on situations where are those filing fees paid upon confirmation as soon as you get the money what are those fees paid the court will enter in order that will either give us a schedule that might say two months three months four months but the clerks tell me that they don't even look at it for one hundred and twenty dollars days the clerks also tell me that they won't confirm a plan if the filing fees are paid and they also and of course a coach tells me i'm not even allowed to pay in a dollars attorney's fees if the filing you know the other problem the other problem with of course with not allowing trustees to collect their percentage fees is it just creates a financial conflict of interest you know you're telling trustees that they need to confirm plans what really our job is yes we want to confirm plans that should be confirmed and comply with all the requirements of the code but we want to be independent and be able to go to the court and say you know your honor i can't confirm this case because this is what's wrong with it or it doesn't comply with the code or whatever whatever the reason might be and  kind of puts us in a bad position because we also need to be able to find our offices so that we can help our doubters the bottom line and just riverhead a question about the about the financial situation that you were describing in terms of the number of debtors and phases of revolving jurisdiction but we look at this issue as a statutory construction question right doesn't turn on the fact that doesn't turn on how much you charge does i mean it's whether the v a is payable whether it's collectable as you've indicated or not by virtue of our application of the law doesn't the facts don't change that you then crack