United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

October 26, 2007 

The Honorable Christopher B. Cannon 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law 

Committee on the Judiciary 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Melvin L. Watt 

The Honorable Adam B. Schiff 

House of Representatives 

Subject: Potential Effect of Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act on Child 

Support Payments Cannot Be Determined because Data Needed for Study Are Not Available

Between 2001 and 2004, an average of more than 1.5 million people annually filed for personal 

bankruptcy protection. In April 2005, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act1

(Reform Act) was enacted, in part, to address certain factors viewed as contributing to an escalation in 

bankruptcy filings. Described as representing the most comprehensive set of reforms in more than 25 

years, the Reform Act, among other things, requires those filers with the ability to pay some of their 

debts from future earnings to enter into repayment plans under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code

instead of liquidating their assets under Chapter 7 and granting the debtor a discharge from eligible 

debts. 

Individuals usually file for bankruptcy under one of two chapters of the Bankruptcy Code. Under 

Chapter 13, filers submit a repayment plan to the court agreeing to pay part or all of their debts over 

time, usually 3 to 5 years. Under Chapter 7, the filer’s eligible assets are reduced to cash and distributed 

to creditors in accordance with distribution priorities and procedures set out in the Bankruptcy Code. A 

large majority of cases filed under Chapter 7 have no assets available for liquidation, and thus no funds 

are available to pay creditors. Upon the successful completion of both Chapter 7 and 13 cases, the filer’s 

personal liability for eligible debts is discharged at the end of the bankruptcy process, which means that 

creditors may take no further action against the individual to collect the debt. Bankruptcy filers may 

choose to reaffirm a debt, often for those debts secured by collateral, such as a home or a car. A 

reaffirmation agreement, generally filed under Chapter 7, formalizes this arrangement, whereby a filer 

with debts secured by collateral retains the collateral and continues to make debt payments to a 

creditor. 

You have expressed interest in learning whether the Reform Act has had or is likely to have an effect on 

bankruptcy filers who have a child support obligation and their ability to make these payments. 

Obligation refers to an amount owed or promised for payment, whereas payment refers to the act of

 1

 Pub. L. No. 109-8, 119 Stat. 23, (2005). 

Page 1 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy
paying or state of being paid. Child support obligations can be for past due child support, current 

support, or medical support. Past due child support refers to a debt owed by a noncustodial parent to, 

for example, a custodial parent or guardian for past child support owed but not paid. In contrast, current 

child support obligations reflect ongoing child support obligations. In the bankruptcy filing documents, a 

filer is to report past due child support and current child support expenses. Unpaid child support 

obligations are not discharged through bankruptcy. To request relief from debt, individuals file a 

petition, financial statements, and schedules (including information about child support obligations), 

among other things, with the bankruptcy court. In this report, we refer to all documents filed with the 

court as bankruptcy filing documents. 

Your interest stemmed from concerns that amendments made by the Reform Act that require certain 

debtors to enter into Chapter 13 repayment plans or potential pressure from creditors to reaffirm debts 

might affect the ability of bankruptcy filers to pay past due child support or ongoing child support 

obligations. This report discusses issues related to our inability to assess the potential impact of the 

Reform Act on child support payments as well as information on bankruptcy filers who have child 

support obligations. Specifically, this report addresses (1) difficulties in determining the potential effect 

of the Reform Act on an individual’s ability to pay child support and (2) an agency proposal regarding 

the use of data-enabled forms—documents with embedded, invisible data tags that facilitate the 

extraction of data for analysis—to alleviate some of these difficulties. 

To develop an assessment methodology and determine whether we would be able to implement it, we 

reviewed pertinent Bankruptcy Code provisions, including those relating to child support that were 

amended by the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, as well as studies, 

analyses, and other relevant literature covering bankruptcy, in general, and how these intersect with the 

child support system, specifically. In addition, we reviewed and analyzed the processes and procedures 

used for both bankruptcy and child support cases, including the federal bankruptcy and child support 

data systems, to determine which systems, if any, might be used to identify a national universe of 

individuals who filed for bankruptcy and paid child support obligations. To understand the various 

federal court, bankruptcy, and child support databases, we interviewed officials and analyzed 

documentation from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC), the Department of Justice’s 

Executive Office for U.S. Trustees (EOUST), and the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) 

Office of Child Support Enforcement. 

In addition, we interviewed officials and collected documentation from 4 of 90 bankruptcy courts

(Northern District of Alabama, Central District of California, Northern District of Texas, and Southern 

District of West Virginia); the regional U.S. Trustees and case trustees who manage cases for the districts 

of Central California, Northern Texas, and Southern West Virginia; and the bankruptcy administrator for 

the Northern District of Alabama.2

 These districts were selected based on specific criteria, namely that 

the selected courts’ proportion of cases filed by Chapter 7 or 13 varied, and that rural and urban 

locations were represented. Using the courts’ electronic public access service, we reviewed a 

nongeneralizable sample of about 60 bankruptcy cases filed in the Eastern and Northern Districts of 

Texas to gain a better understanding of how child support obligations were reported in practice. These 

 2

 Six district bankruptcy courts in Alabama and North Carolina are not under the jurisdiction of the Executive Office for U.S. 

Trustees. These six districts are the Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Alabama and the Eastern, Middle, and Western 

Districts of North Carolina. These districts have bankruptcy administrators who oversee bankruptcy cases and are under the 

jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. Pursuant to the Bankruptcy Judges, United States Trustees, and Family Farmer Bankruptcy 

Act of 1986 (Pub. L. No. 99-554, 100 Stat. 3088 (1986)), the Judicial Conference established the bankruptcy administrator 

program in these two states as a part of the federal judiciary. 

Page 2 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
cases were selected based on our knowledge of cases containing a child support obligation, as reported 

by the case trustees who manage cases for both the Eastern and Northern Districts of Texas. Case 

trustees are individuals who are typically appointed by the regional U. S. Trustees to administer 

individual bankruptcy cases. To further our understanding of state child support processes and the data 

systems used by states, we interviewed officials and collected documentation from selected states’ child 

support enforcement agencies, those of Alabama, California, Illinois, New York, Texas, and West

Virginia. We chose these six states for the diverse geography, caseload sizes, and administrative 

structures. Our work was conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards from May 2006 through September 2007. 

Results in Brief 

After exploring the data available and the limitations of those data, we found that it was not possible to 

determine the potential effects of pertinent child support-related provisions of the Bankruptcy Abuse 

Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 on filers’ child support obligations and payments for 

two principal reasons. First, current federal laws do not require this particular universe—– bankruptcy 

filers who also have child support obligations—to be identified on a recurring basis,3

 and the federal 

judiciary and the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees do not separately identify filers who have these 

obligations. The information contained in the data systems used by the federal judiciary and regional 

U.S. Trustees cannot be searched for bankruptcy cases that contain child support obligations. Therefore, 

we tested a case study approach to identify these filers. At our request, 33 case trustees who manage 

individual bankruptcy cases in the Eastern and Northern Districts of Texas identified 495 cases filed 

between October 2005 and August 2006 in which the bankruptcy filer reported a child support 

obligation. The case trustees perceived this task as one that required extra effort and added to their case 

management responsibilities. To do a national study would require making a similar request of the other 

20 regional U.S. Trustees and a statistically representative sample of their 1,342 case trustees. Second, in 

our review of a nongeneralizable sample of 60 cases, we found that the information provided by filers 

and their attorneys contained in the case files had data limitations—including missing information and 

data that were inconsistently reported—that limited any analysis that could be done. For example, the 

bankruptcy documents that filers are required to complete did not show what portion of a payment for a 

child support obligation is applied to current support versus past due child support. According to HHS 

officials, state child support data would be needed to determine the details regarding the amounts of 

child support payments and the payment status of cases; those data are complex and available only 

through the individual states. State child support enforcement officials in one state told us that providing 

child support payment information would involve a time-consuming and resource-intensive process 

because the data come from several sources within the state’s data system. Thus, data limitations, the 

need to examine individual bankruptcy case files, and the need to work with each state child support 

enforcement agency combined to make examining the issues of child support and bankruptcy very

expensive and time-consuming, and the conclusions that could be drawn from such an examination 

uncertain. 

As of August 2007, the federal judiciary is considering a request from the Executive Office for U.S.

Trustees (EOUST) for the mandatory use of data enabled forms which may enhance the ability to search 

 3

 Pursuant to a statutory mandate, GAO is performing a one time study to assess the feasibility, effectiveness, and cost of 

requiring trustees or the bankruptcy courts to provide the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Child Support 

Enforcement with bankruptcy debtor information to allow the office to determine whether such debtors have outstanding child 

support obligations. 

Page 3 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
future bankruptcy data. Data-enabled forms contain embedded data tags that are invisible to the user. 

The tags allow computer systems to automatically extract the tagged data as well as categorize it so that 

the information can be analyzed. Currently, filers are not required to use data-enabled forms. EOUST 

officials have requested that the federal judiciary make the use of the data-enabled forms mandatory 

because, once implemented, they believe that the data-enabled forms will eliminate thousands of hours 

attributed to the manual review of forms by EOUST staff to meet the Reform Act’s mandatory data 

collection requirements.4

 EOUST’s request included marking data elements to meet new requirements 

under the Reform Act and other data elements, including child support obligations. However, judiciary 

officials and others have expressed concerns about the forms’ mandatory use because of technical,

nontechnical, and cost issues. With regard to technical issues, according to AOUSC officials, the dataenabled form technology must be compatible with its current information system, and the electronic and 

hard copy documents should be identical to comply with legal requirements, applicable Federal Rules of 

Procedure, and record-keeping requirements (i.e., National Archives and Records Administration 

standards). With regard to nontechnical issues, the judiciary, certain attorneys, and form vendors are 

concerned about the amount of data that EOUST wants to extract and is also concerned about the 

purpose for which these data would be or could be used. With respect to cost, AOUSC officials 

expressed concerns about their developmental costs and implementation costs to filers and their 

attorneys. 

We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department 

of Justice (DOJ) and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts for comment. The two departments 

had no comments. On October 18, 2007, AOUSC provided written comments that are presented in 

enclosure I. In its comments, AOUSC notes that the report reflects how difficult it is to assess the 

effects of the Reform Act in the complex area of bankruptcy and child support. AOUSC also noted that 

the report should more clearly state that additional data, or the implementation of data-enabled forms, 

would not necessarily enhance the ability to assess the pre- and post-Reform Act status of debtors’ 

ability to pay their child support payments after exiting bankruptcy. We recognize and agree that there 

are a number of issues that affect such an analysis. Nevertheless, the data in the bankruptcy case files is 

essential for analyzing the implementation of the Reform Act and the operations of the bankruptcy 

system in general. The extraordinary effort currently required to extract data from bankruptcy case files 

greatly increases the time, effort, and cost associated with any analysis of bankruptcy filers or 

bankruptcy cases. Congress has a policymaking and oversight interest in the operations of the 

bankruptcy system and in obtaining cost-effective analyses that can inform congressional 

decisionmaking with regard to potential changes in bankruptcy statutes and processes. We believe such 

analyses cannot be efficiently accomplished unless AOUSC and the judiciary help make bankruptcy case 

data more readily accessible for analysis. 

Background 

Overview of the U.S. Bankruptcy System

Bankruptcy is a federal court procedure designed to help both individuals and businesses address debts 

they cannot fully repay as well as help creditors receive some payment in an equitable manner. Under 

 4

 The Reform Act imposed new requirements for collecting and reporting data on bankruptcy cases. The purpose of these 

bankruptcy statistics requirements is to be able to gather detailed information, at the individual case level, about bankruptcy

filers, including financial statistics and the average period of time between case filing and closure. This information is to be 

used to provide an overview of the bankruptcy filer universe (not individual cases) annually, beginning no later than July 2008. 

Page 4 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
Chapter 7, an individual’s assets are liquidated for the benefit of creditors and the debtor’s personal 

liability for eligible debts is discharged. Under Chapter 13, an individual repays some or all debt under a 

court-approved plan prior to a discharge.5

 Child support debt is not discharged under either Chapter 7 or 

Chapter 13. Individual bankruptcy is designed to give debtors a “fresh start” but is often considered a 

last resort, in large part because of the adverse effect it can have on an individual’s credit record. As 

shown in figure 1, federal courts have jurisdiction over bankruptcy cases, and petitions can be filed in 

any one of the nation’s 90 federal bankruptcy courts.6

 The figure also shows that the courts share 

responsibility of administration for bankruptcy cases with regional U.S. Trustees at the Department of 

Justice. 

 5

 Because businesses do not pay child support obligations, the scope of this report is limited to individual bankruptcies. 

6

 There are 94 judicial districts, but only 90 federal bankruptcy courts because the Eastern and Western Arkansas judicial 

districts are served by a single bankruptcy court and bankruptcy cases in Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana 

Islands judicial districts are filed in district court. 

Page 5 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
Figure 1: Overview of Federal Bankruptcy System 

Judiciary

Administrative 

Office of the U.S. 

Courts (AOUSC)a

Executive

Department of

Justice

Executive Office

for U.S. Trustees

(EOUST)a

EOUST

regional offices

Automated

Case Management

System

Case Management/

Electronic Case 

Files (CM/ECF) system

Public Access

to Court Electronic 

Records (PACER)

System for tracking and managing bankruptcy cases

used by AOUSC and bankruptcy courts

Data extracted daily from 

CM/ECF to assist EOUST 

and regional U.S. Trustees

in managing bankruptcy cases

U.S. Party Case 

Index (USPCI)

Congress

• Through the U.S. Trustee 

 Program oversees operations, 

 functions in field offices

• Provides policy, legal guidance 

 to 21 regional U.S. trustees

• Individual files petition

 with the bankruptcy court,

 which initiates a bankruptcy case

• Bankruptcy court has jurisdiction 

 over bankruptcy cases

• Oversees individual bankruptcy 

 cases filed in region

• Oversees activities of private 

 case trustees

• Manages, tracks individual 

bankruptcy cases

• Enables attorneys to file 

bankruptcy documents

 electronically with courts

• Allows access to case and 

 document information from 

bankruptcy courts

• Documents filed through 

 CM/ECF available to public 

 via Internet

• National courts system 

 locator facilitates nationwide 

searches of individual 

bankruptcy filings

• Supports judiciary

• Provides administrative, 

 legal, financial, 

 management, program, 

and technology services

Source: GAO.

90

bankruptcy

courts

a

Six districts in Alabama and North Carolina do not have regional trustees and are not under the jurisdiction of the Executive Office for U. S. 

Trustees. Instead, these six districts have bankruptcy administrators who are under the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. The bankruptcy

administrators carry out duties similar to those of the regional U.S. Trustees, including the administration of bankruptcy cases, maintaining a 

panel of private trustees, and monitoring the transactions and conduct of parties in bankruptcy. 

Overview of Federal/State Child Support Enforcement System

Child support obligations are enforced through a federal/state partnership. State child support 

enforcement agencies typically maintain detailed information about child support cases, including the 

court order for child support that specifies the amount of the obligation and how it is to be paid; the 

status of payments made, including the amount of past due child support owed, if any; and the names 

and addresses of all parties involved in a child support order, among other things.7

 As figure 2 shows, 

 7

 While state agencies have detailed information about child support cases they administer, HHS officials said that the states 

have minimal to no information available about child support cases that are handled outside the state child support

enforcement agency, and the amount of information varies state by state. 

Page 6 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
each state regularly transmits some of this information to HHS’s Office of Child Support Enforcement to 

be included in federal databases that help states enforce child support obligations nationwide. 

Figure 2: Overview of Child Support Enforcement System 

Department of Health 

and Human Services

Office of Child 

Support Enforcement

Federal Case 

Registry

Source: GAO.

Federal Offset 

Program

State child support

enforcement systems

1. Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE)—assists states in obtaining support (both financial and 

medical) for children by helping locate parents, establishing paternity and support obligations, and 

enforcing those obligations through a federal/state/local partnership. 

2. Federal Case Registry (FCR)—a national database that includes all child support cases handled by 

state child support agencies and all support court orders established or modified on or after October 1, 

1998. The FCR assists states in locating parties who live in different states to establish, modify, or 

enforce child support obligations; establish paternity; enforce state law regarding parental kidnapping; 

and establish or enforce child custody or visitation. Populated with data from state case registries, 

the FCR primarily serves as a pointer system to the state, where more detailed information about a

case is maintained

3. Federal Offset Program (FOP)—assists states with the collection of delinquent child support debts by 

intercepting tax refunds or denying the issuance of a passport, among other things, using a database 

containing individuals who owe back child support. For example, the Federal Income Tax Refund Offset 

Program collects past due child support payments from the tax refunds of parents who have been ordered 

to pay child support. Under this offset program, tax refunds owed to noncustodial parents are intercepted 

and sent to the state child support agency through OCSE, to pay the noncustodial parent’s past due child 

support debt.

4. State child support enforcement systems—data from each of the 50 states and the District of 

Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands that includes case information about child support 

cases when the state provides services and limited information about cases when the state does not 

provide services (that were modified after October 1, 1998). A subset of this data is transmitted to HHS’s

FCR and FOP. State child support enforcement systems generally contain more detailed information than 

HHS’s systems. These state systems include detailed information on obligations, arrearages, and payment 

date of receipt for cases when the state provides services. 

1

2 3

4

Page 7 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
Data Limitations Restrict Analysis of the Potential Effects of the Reform Act on Bankruptcy 

Filers’ Child Support Payments 

Data limitations we encountered when attempting to assess the effect of the pertinent child support 

related provisions of the Reform Act on child support payments relate to identifying a sample of 

bankruptcy filers with child support obligations as well as data collection and consistency issues. These 

factors restricted our ability to perform an analysis of child support payments. 

Information to Identify Bankruptcy Filers with Child Support Obligations Is Not Readily Available

At the time of our review, it was not possible to determine the potential effects of the Reform Act on 

bankruptcy filers who also had child support obligations because there is no practical means of reliably 

identifying this universe. We sought to identify a representative sample of bankruptcy filers with child 

support obligations from a national universe so that we could project an effect of the Reform Act 

nationwide. Although the federal bankruptcy system has multiple databases, as does the federal/state 

child support system, none of these databases single out a universe of bankruptcy filers who have child 

support obligations and their child support payment information, as shown in figure 3. Current federal 

laws do not require this universe to be identified on a recurring basis. 

Page 8 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
Figure 3: Information Contained in Bankruptcy and Child Support Databases 

Case Management/

Electronic Case Files System

Bankruptcy databases

• Contains information on bankruptcy 

 filers with child support obligations, 

but information is not searchable.

• Does not contain information on 

 child support payments.

• Contains information about 

 child support payments.

• Some states’ systems may contain

 information on bankruptcy filers. 

 Maintaining this information is

 not required, so the information 

available varies from state to state.

Federal Case Registry

Child support databases

Does not contain information on 

bankruptcy filers.

Federal Offset 

Program Database

State child support 

enforcement systems

U.S. Party Case Index

Does not contain information on 

bankruptcy filers with child support 

obligations or child support payments.

Automated Case

Management System

Source: GAO.

In an effort to identify whether each database described in figure 3 contained information on either child 

support obligations or child support payments, we reviewed these databases, including the systems used 

by staff in the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees and the U.S. bankruptcy courts, which manage federal 

bankruptcy cases. At EOUST, the Automated Case Management System (which is based on extracts of 

case management information from AOUSC) functions as an internal agency case management system 

that contains the information needed by the U.S. Trustee Program to carry out its responsibilities, 

including supervising the administration of cases and case trustees. Some case details, such as child 

support information, are not extracted—and this system is not designed to provide that type of

information. The case management system contains information about bankruptcy filers in 84 of 90 

bankruptcy courts. The remaining 6 bankruptcy courts are not part of the U.S. Trustee Program, so 

information about bankruptcy filers in these districts is not included in the Automated Case 

Management System.8

 8

 These include the Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Alabama and the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of 

North Carolina. 

Page 9 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
To identify a national universe of bankruptcy filers who also have child support obligations, we reviewed 

two databases used by AOUSC and the bankruptcy courts. While one of these systems—the Case 

Management/Electronic Case Files System—included child support information, the fields where this 

information is contained are not searchable. The child support information is contained in filing 

documents as text. According to AOUSC officials, it is difficult to isolate and extract the relevant child 

support information from other text in the documents. The second system, the U.S. Party Case Index, 

does not contain any child support information. 

The two federal HHS child support systems we reviewed—the Federal Case Registry and the Federal 

Offset Program database—did not contain all of the information needed for analysis. Specifically, they 

did not contain detailed payment information needed for our analysis. This information is available only 

at the state child support enforcement agencies. 

For a case study approach, we explored identifying bankruptcy filers who have child support obligations 

at the bankruptcy court level—specifically, in the Eastern and Northern Districts of Texas. We found 

that identifying these filers required the regional U.S. Trustee (who oversees bankruptcy cases filed in 

these two courts) to ask the 33 case trustees in the region to identify, using their working files, those 

cases where the filer reported owing a child support obligation. When we made this request, the case 

trustees identified 495 cases filed between October 2005 and August 2006 in which the bankruptcy filer 

reported a child support obligation. However, this information was not readily available and it took them 

almost 3 months to compile. Also, the case trustees perceived this task as one that required extra effort 

and added to their case management responsibilities. To do a national study would require making a 

similar request of the other 20 regional U.S. Trustees and a statistically representative sample of their 

1,342 case trustees. 

Missing Information and Inconsistent Data Reporting Affect Analysis of Reform Act Impact

Even if we were able to identify a sample of bankruptcy filers who also have child support obligations, 

we noted data limitations that may preclude the necessary analysis. Of the 495 cases identified by case 

trustees as having a child support obligation, we reviewed data provided by bankruptcy filers and their 

attorneys for 60 case files and found data limitations such as missing information and inconsistent data. 

In addition to data issues, we found that changes to filing information and the characteristics of 

bankruptcy filers resulting from the Reform Act affect our ability to make direct pre- and post-Reform 

Act comparisons. 

Missing Information Affects Data Analysis 

On the basis of our nongeneralizable case file review in the two districts, we found that the details 

needed to determine how child support payments were applied to child support debt were not available.

Specifically, the bankruptcy documents that filers are required to complete do not show what portion of 

a payment for a child support obligation is applied to current monthly support versus past due child 

support. Without this information, we are unable to provide a complete picture of how a bankruptcy 

filer’s child support debt is structured. Details about child support payments are available only at the 

state child support agencies. 

To explore how state child support enforcement agencies maintain data regarding child support 

payments, we contacted child support enforcement officials in six states. While officials in one state 

were helpful in providing some child support data, these officials told us that there were technical 

barriers and resource limitations to making child support payment data easily available for our purposes. 

Page 10 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
For example, officials were able to provide summary data to us about individuals in the system, such as 

whether they were custodial or noncustodial parents. However, these officials said that providing child 

support payment information involves a time-consuming and resource-intensive process because the 

data come from several sources within the state’s data system.9

 These circumstances require preparing 

programming language to merge the sources and compile the information. When the state provided the 

summary data, officials had to take into consideration their existing workload in order to meet our 

request as well as accommodate the needs of the state legislature, which was in session. In addition, 

officials in two other states mentioned that they would have to balance providing this type of 

information with the priority of carrying out their enforcement activities. 

We also observed examples where bankruptcy data that would be needed for determining a filer’s 

financial condition after a Chapter 7 case is closed were not collected. Knowing this information is 

important when assessing a filer’s future ability to pay child support. For instance, under Chapter 7, 

bankruptcy filers are to propose in the filing documents how they plan to address a debt secured by 

collateral. Whether or not the filer took action on this proposal cannot be determined because this

information is not captured in the bankruptcy filing documents or data systems. For example, a filer can 

propose to surrender the collateral to the creditor. However, neither the filer nor the creditor is required 

to provide information to the court or trustees about whether or not this action occurred, so we have no 

way of confirming that the collateral was surrendered. We also found a case where a filer proposed to 

reaffirm a debt, but no reaffirmation agreement (an agreement that formalizes the arrangement whereby 

a filer retains collateral and continues to make payments to a creditor) was filed with the court. We have 

no way of knowing whether or not the filer continued to make payments to the creditor after the case 

was closed. In fact, even when a reaffirmation agreement is filed, data on the extent to which a filer was 

able to meet the terms specified in the agreement (e.g., made payments as required) are likely only 

available, if at all, at the individual creditor level.

Inconsistent Data Affect Analysis 

Our review raised questions about the consistency of bankruptcy filers’ data. We found instances among 

the nongeneralizable sample of case files we reviewed where information in the filing documents was 

reported inconsistently. For example, one case showed the total amount of an ongoing child support 

obligation as a debt in the filing documents for several years into the future (i.e., debt obligations that 

are not due until a future date), whereas in another case, the filer reported the ongoing obligation as a 

monthly amount, not the total amount of the future obligation. Also, some case trustees told us that 

filers (and their attorneys) sometimes complete the filing documents differently, resulting in inconsistent 

information being reported. For example, on one filing document filers may report past due or current 

child support obligations without identifying which type of obligation is being reported. 

Changes to Filing Information and the Characteristics of Bankruptcy Filers Affect Ability to 

Analyze the Impact of the Reform Act 

In addition to the data collection and the consistency issues we identified, we also were unable to make 

direct comparisons between the universe of bankruptcy filers who filed just before the majority of the 

Reform Act provisions took effect in October 2005 and those who filed immediately after. The ability to 

 9

 We worked with these state officials for over approximately 7 months to obtain the summary-level data. The officials 

estimated that an additional 2 months would be required to obtain the payment information needed for our analysis. 

Page 11 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
perform a pre- and post-Reform Act analysis of filers is important for conducting an analysis of the Act’s 

impact on bankruptcy filers who also have a child support obligation. 

We were unable to compare these universes for two reasons. First, the filers within these universes may 

well have been motivated to file for different reasons than filers in prior years—reflecting, in part, the 

perception that filing for bankruptcy would be more difficult after the Reform Act, according to court 

officials and our analysis. Thus, individuals who filed before the law’s provisions went into effect may 

have been less critically in need of bankruptcy relief than typical filers in prior years, whereas after the 

law’s provisions went into effect, filers may have been more critically in need of bankruptcy relief. We 

would be unable to directly attribute any differences between these groups as resulting from the Reform 

Act because of the possibility that the characteristics of the groups of filers might be inherently different 

for reasons related more to behavior than changes in Bankruptcy Code provisions. 

Second, some definitional changes made to the Bankruptcy Code as a result of the Reform Act limit our 

ability to make pre- and post-Reform Act comparisons. For example, prior to the Reform Act, the term 

“debt for child support” was defined as specified types of debt for maintenance or support of a child of 

the debtor. The Reform Act introduced the broader umbrella term “domestic support obligation” that in 

addition to child support debt also refers to certain other types of debts such as alimony. In addition, 

under the Reform Act, the definition of domestic support obligation expanded the types of entities that 

could seek to collect domestic support obligations beyond a spouse, former spouse, or child of the 

debtor to include a child’s parent, legal guardian, responsible relative, or a governmental unit. These 

types of definitional changes limit our ability to compare filer universes. 

As mentioned previously, reaffirmed debts are certain debts (e.g., a mortgage or automobile loan) that a 

bankruptcy filer agrees to pay that might otherwise be discharged by the bankruptcy court. The Reform 

Act included changes that affected reaffirmation agreements. The Reform Act requires that certain 

information, such as the amount to be reaffirmed, be disclosed. This information was not required under 

federal law prior to the Reform Act and may or may not be included in reaffirmation agreements filed 

prior to the act. Furthermore, agreements made before or after the Reform Act were not required to 

include information on actual monthly payments made that would be needed to assess the impact of 

such agreements on a filer’s ability to pay child support. 

Data-Enabled Forms under Consideration as a Method to Search Bankruptcy Data For Filers 

Who Have Child Support Obligations 

As noted earlier, bankruptcy databases do not contain information that would be needed about actual 

child support payments—information available only through state child support agency data. In 

particular, state child support data would be needed to determine the details regarding the amounts of 

child support payments and the payment status of cases—that is, whether child support payments are up 

to date or past due child support is owed. However, if data-enabled forms were to be used and if child 

support obligations were among the data fields tagged, limited analysis could include summary 

information on the number of bankruptcy filers who reported a domestic support obligation or included 

ongoing child support obligations in their bankruptcy filing documents. Data-enabled forms contain 

embedded data tags that are invisible to the user but which a computer system can detect using 

programming language. After a user completes the form online, the tags allow a computer system to 

automatically extract the tagged data as well as categorize it so that the information can be compared 

and analyzed. 

Page 12 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
As mentioned previously, according to AOUSC officials, extracting child support information from the 

current bankruptcy courts databases is difficult. The judiciary is considering a request by EOUST to 

mark certain data elements in the filing document text so it can more easily be extracted. EOUST’s 

request included marking data elements to meet new requirements under the Reform Act and other data 

elements, including child support obligations. The Reform Act imposed new requirements for collecting 

and reporting specified data on bankruptcy cases. The purpose of these bankruptcy statistics 

requirements is to be able to gather detailed information, at the individual case level, about bankruptcy 

filers, such as financial statistics and the average period of time between case filing and closure. This 

information is to be used to provide an overview of the bankruptcy filer universe (not individual cases) 

annually beginning no later than July 2008. AOUSC and EOUST both have responsibilities for collecting 

and reporting data as a result of the Reform Act. For purposes of the bankruptcy data collection, EOUST 

is considering data-enabled forms as one option for meeting reporting requirements, such as the total 

assets and liabilities of filers, the aggregate debt discharged by filers during the reporting period, and 

trustees’ final reports (which include information about the length of time a case was pending, assets, 

disbursements, and expenses, among other things). EOUST’s request seeks to include additional data 

elements that judiciary officials consider unrelated to the data required by the Reform Act and unrelated 

to the management of cases. Judiciary officials have expressed concerns about the volume of data 

proposed to be tagged. 

There are factors that affect the potential use of data-enabled forms. According to AOUSC officials, the 

forms have not been used because certain bankruptcy attorneys and the software vendor community 

have raised concerns about privacy issues and the volume of data proposed to be tagged, among others. 

Issues have also been raised concerning the programming format for embedding the tags. Currently, 

filers are not required to use data-enabled forms. EOUST has proposed a technology for data-enabled 

forms and made a request to AOUSC that the use of data-enabled forms be mandatory because, once 

such forms are implemented, they believe that the new automated data collection process will eliminate 

thousands of hours attributed to the manual review of forms by EOUST to meet the Reform Act 

mandatory data collection requirements. As of August 2007, the federal judiciary is considering EOUST’s 

request that data-enabled forms be mandatory. However, the federal judiciary, certain attorneys, and 

form vendors have voiced concerns about the forms’ mandatory use because of technical, nontechnical, 

and cost issues. With regard to technical issues, according to AOUSC officials, the data-enabled form 

technology must be compatible with its current information system, and the electronic and hard copy 

documents should be identical to comply with rules of court procedures and record-keeping standards. 

With regard to nontechnical issues, the judiciary, certain attorneys, and form vendors are concerned 

about the amount of data that EOUST wants to extract and are also concerned about the purpose for 

which these data would be or could be used. With respect to cost, AOUSC officials expressed concerns 

about their developmental costs and implementation costs to filers and their attorneys. 

At its January 2007 meeting, the Committee on the Administration on the Bankruptcy System10 of the 

U.S. Judicial Conference decided to study further the mandatory use of data-enabled forms. According to 

AOUSC officials, in September 2007 EOUST demonstrated its technological proposal for the use of dataenabled forms to the Bankruptcy Committee’s Subcommittee on Automation and other judiciary 

officials. The Bankruptcy Committee is considering plans to conduct a survey of vendors and 

 10 The Judicial Conference of the United States operates through a network of committees created to address and advise on a 

wide variety of subjects such as information technology, personnel, space and facilities, security, judicial salaries and benefits,

budget, court administration, and rules of practice and procedure. The Committee on the Administration of the Bankruptcy 

System oversees the bankruptcy system by monitoring, analyzing, and proposing legislation affecting bankruptcy operations, 

including their impact on the entire judiciary, for consideration by the Judicial Conference. 

Page 13 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
bankruptcy attorneys regarding the mandatory use of data-enabled forms. According to AOUSC officials, 

as of August 2007, the Bankruptcy Committee had not set a time frame for completing its study. 

In summary, obtaining the data needed to asses the impact of the Reform Act on filers who have child 

support obligations is difficult and time-consuming and requires the review of case files by us and case 

trustees. Moreover, it is not clear, given the limitations of the data available, that the extensive and

expensive effort required would yield data that could be used to reach reasonably reliable conclusions. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 

We provided a draft of this report to AOUSC, DOJ, and HHS for review and comment. DOJ and HHS had 

no comments on the draft. AOUSC provided written comments on October 18, 2007, which are 

presented in appendix I. AOUSC also provided technical comments that were incorporated as 

appropriate. 

In its comments, AOUSC notes that the report reflects how difficult it is to assess the effects of the 

Reform Act in the complex area of bankruptcy and child support. AOUSC also noted that the report 

should more clearly state that additional data, or the implementation of data enabled forms, would not 

necessarily enhance the ability to assess the pre- and post-Reform Act status of debtors' ability to pay 

their child support payments after exiting bankruptcy, given the variations in local economies, debtor 

characteristics, and other factors. We recognize and agree there are a number of issues that affect any 

pre- and post-Reform Act analysis. Nevertheless, the data in the bankruptcy case files is essential for 

analyzing the implementation of the Reform Act and the operations of the bankruptcy system in general. 

To compensate for the limitations of the data available for analysis, AOUSC suggests that we provide a 

more extensive legal analysis, including expounding on the potential validity of hypotheses regarding the 

effect of chapter 13 versus chapter 7 proceedings on the ability of debtors to pay child support 

obligations. We, bankruptcy scholars, and other researchers can speculate on these probable effects. 

However, Congress has requested fact-based analyses. The extraordinary effort currently required to 

extract data from bankruptcy case files greatly increases the time, effort, and cost associated with any 

analysis of bankruptcy filers or bankruptcy cases. The data in the case files are essential for testing the 

validity of many hypotheses regarding the operations of the bankruptcy courts and bankruptcy system. 

Congress has a policymaking and oversight interest in the operations of the bankruptcy system and in 

obtaining cost-effective analyses that can inform congressional decisionmaking with regard to potential 

changes in bankruptcy statutes and processes. We believe such analyses cannot be efficiently 

accomplished unless AOUSC and the judiciary help make bankruptcy case data more readily accessible 

for analysis. 

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no 

further distribution of it until 30 days from the date of this letter. We then plan to provide copies of this 

report to the Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the Attorney General of the 

Department of Justice, and the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and other 

interested congressional committees and parties. We will also make copies available to others upon 

request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 

Page 14 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-8757 or 

jenkinswo@gao.gov. Contact points for our Office of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be 

found on the last page of this report. GAO staff contributing to this report are listed in the enclosure II. 

William Jenkins, Jr., Director 

Homeland Security and Justice Issues 

Page 15 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
Enclosure I 

Page 16 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
Enclosure I 

Page 17 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
Enclosure I 

Page 18 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
Enclosure II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact 

William O. Jenkins, Jr., Director, GAO Homeland Security and Justice Issues, 

(202) 512-8757 (jenkinswo@gao.gov) 

Acknowledgments 

Other key contributors to this report were Linda Watson, Assistant Director; and Amy Bernstein; Cynthia 

Grant; Geoffrey Hamilton; Gale Harris; Susan Higgins; Ron La Due Lake; Sara Pelton; Peter Singer; Jamie 

Whitcomb; Tracy Williams; and Ellen Wolfe. 

(440443) 

Page 19 GAO-08-148R Child Support Under Bankruptcy 
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