Amendment to Official Bankruptcy Form 7

To: The Bankruptcy Bar

Re: Amendment to Official Bankruptcy Form 7, Statement of Financial Affairs

The Judicial Conference of the United states, at its September 2000 session, approved amendments of Official Bankruptcy Form 7, the Statement of Financial Affairs. The amendments are immediately effective. This form must be completed by the debtor in every case.

The form has been amended to provide additional information requested by taxing authorities, pension fund supervisors, and governmental units charged with environmental protection and regulation. Four new questions have been added to the form. The new questions concern:

• community property owned by a debtor and the debtor's non-filing spouse or a former spouse (Question 16),
  
• environmental information (Question 17),
• any consolidated tax group of a corporate debtor (Question 24), and
• the debtor's contributuions to any employee pension fund (Question 25).
  

In addition, every corporate or partnership debtor and every individual debtor or joint debtor who has been in business within six years before filing the petition must answer Questions 19 - 25, This is an enlargement of the two-year period previously specified. The instructions contained in the form have also been amended to make it clear that individual or joint debtors who have not been in business, as defined in the form, within the six years prior to filing should not answer Questions 19 through 25 but proceed directly to the signature page of the form.

/s/
Kent Lindquist, Chief Judge
United States Bankruptcy Court

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