What Debts Cannot Be Discharged in Hawaiʻi Bankruptcy?
This guide is legal information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every situation is different, and the right move in your case depends on your facts. For advice about your own situation, start with my free questionnaire or call me at (808) 468-7000.
I work hard to keep this page accurate, but errors or omissions are possible and the law can change. The information here is current only as of the date above.
What debts cannot be discharged in Hawaiʻi bankruptcy?
A short list, and it is mostly the list you would expect. Child support and alimony always survive. So do most student loans (unless you pursue a discharge path), recent income taxes, criminal fines and restitution, and debts from fraud or drunk driving injuries. Nearly everything else that brings people to my office, credit cards, medical bills, and unsecured personal loans, is wiped out.
The list of survivors is short and specific. Some debts survive only if the creditor objects, by filing its own lawsuit inside your bankruptcy case within sixty days after the first date set for your meeting of creditors.
The Debts That Are Erased
The discharge is the point of a bankruptcy: a permanent court order that erases your legal obligation to pay qualifying debts. In a typical consumer case that includes credit card balances, medical and hospital bills, unsecured personal and payday loans, utility balances, old repossession deficiencies, and the debts of a closed sole proprietorship. My Chapter 7 guide keeps the full list, along with how the discharge injunction protects you permanently after the case closes.
The Debts That Always Survive
Child support and alimony. Domestic support obligations survive every bankruptcy, in every chapter, no exceptions. Bankruptcy can still help indirectly: clearing your other debts frees income for the support you owe, and a Chapter 13 plan can catch up on support arrears in a structured way.
Criminal fines and restitution. Fines, penalties, and restitution from a criminal case survive in every chapter, and in a Chapter 7 this extends to most government fines and penalties.
Drunk driving injuries. A debt for death or personal injury caused by driving while intoxicated survives bankruptcy.
Student Loans: They Survive by Default, but They Are Not Untouchable
Student loans do not disappear in an ordinary discharge; they survive unless you take a separate step. That step is asking the court to find that repayment would be an undue hardship, and for federal loans, a standardized Department of Justice attestation process, in effect since late 2022, has made that request far more realistic than it used to be. I am now taking these cases. The details, including who tends to qualify, are in my federal student loan guide. And there are some private loans that can be discharged without filing a lawsuit at all; the same guide covers which ones.
Taxes: It Depends on the Calendar
Recent income taxes survive a Chapter 7. Older income taxes can sometimes be discharged, but only when a strict set of timing rules is met, and the rules are technical enough that I run them for every client with tax debt. My guide to tax debt in bankruptcy lays them out. Hawaiʻi general excise tax debts are treated like income taxes for this purpose: recent GE tax debts survive, and older ones can sometimes be discharged under the same timing rules.
Some tax debts never qualify, no matter how old they are. Taxes for returns that were never filed, including unfiled Hawaiʻi state returns, are never discharged. Neither are taxes tied to a fraudulent return or a willful attempt to evade payment. And taxes you collected or withheld for someone else, like the withholding taken out of employee paychecks, are never discharged. This includes the personal penalty the government can assess against a business owner when those withheld taxes go unpaid.
A recorded tax lien is its own problem. If the IRS or the State of Hawaiʻi recorded a tax lien before you filed, that lien survives against the property you owned on the filing date, even when the underlying tax itself is discharged.
Divorce Debts: Support vs. Non-Support
In a divorce, the law splits obligations into two kinds. Obligations that are support, child support and alimony, survive every bankruptcy, as covered above. Bankruptcy can still help there: a Chapter 13 plan gives you a structured way to catch up on past-due support over time. Non-support divorce debt, which is money you owe your former spouse that is not support (for example, a promise in the decree to pay a joint credit card), is different: it survives a Chapter 7 but can be discharged when a Chapter 13 plan is completed. If a divorce is part of your financial picture, this difference alone can decide the chapter, and the sequence matters as well, so my guide to divorce and bankruptcy covers both.
The Debts That Survive Only If the Creditor Objects
Debts based on fraud, false financial statements, money taken in a position of trust, or willful and malicious injury are not automatically excluded from your discharge. To keep one of these debts alive, the creditor must object by filing its own lawsuit inside your bankruptcy case, called an adversary proceeding, and it must win. The deadline is sixty days after the first date set for your meeting of creditors, and continuing that meeting does not push it back. If the creditor never files, the debt is discharged with everything else, unless it is one that survives on its own without any objection.
An accusation is not a result. A fraud claim must be proven, not just raised. If a creditor has raised fraud with you, tell me at the start so I can plan for it.
A fraud complaint like this targets a single debt: win or lose, the rest of your discharge stands. An objection to your entire discharge is a different and more serious case. It is based on conduct in the bankruptcy itself, such as hiding assets or false statements in your papers, and if it succeeds, none of your debts are discharged and every creditor can collect. These cases are rare, and the protection is simple: complete, accurate paperwork.
Chapter 13 Changes the List a Little
Chapter 13's discharge is meaningfully broader, and it reaches several debts a Chapter 7 leaves behind. Debts that survive a Chapter 7 and can be discharged when a Chapter 13 plan is completed include debts for willfully or maliciously damaging someone's property (as opposed to injuring a person), most government fines that are not criminal, the non-support divorce debt covered above, and recent income taxes.
The tax one works differently from the rest. A plan has to pay a recent income tax in full while it runs, so you do not walk away from the tax itself. What a completed Chapter 13 can erase is the interest that built up during the case and penalties that are not tied to an actual loss to the agency, and on a large balance that is often the biggest piece.
What survives both chapters is child support and alimony, student loans, debts from actual fraud, criminal fines and restitution, injuries from drunk driving, money taken in a position of trust, and taxes for a return you never filed.
The broader discharge comes only from completing the plan. If the case ends early and the court grants a hardship discharge instead, the full Chapter 7 list comes back.
Let's talk about your options.
I have helped more than a thousand people through this. Tell me what you are dealing with and I will tell you what you may qualify for: Chapter 7, Chapter 13, or another path entirely.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can bankruptcy wipe out child support or alimony?
No. Domestic support obligations survive every bankruptcy, in every chapter. What bankruptcy can do is erase the debts around them, so more of your income is available for the support you owe, and a Chapter 13 plan can catch up on support arrears in a structured way.
Are student loans really impossible to discharge?
No, but they do not go away on their own. Student loans survive an ordinary discharge unless the court determines that repayment would be an undue hardship. For federal loans, a Department of Justice process can resolve many of these cases without a trial, and I am now taking these cases.
Can back taxes be discharged in bankruptcy?
Sometimes, yes. Older income taxes can be discharged when a strict set of timing rules is met. Recent income taxes survive a Chapter 7, and taxes for returns that were never filed are never discharged in either chapter. If tax debt is part of your situation, the filing date can matter, so bring your tax history to the first conversation.
Can Hawaiʻi general excise tax debt be discharged?
Sometimes, yes. Hawaiʻi general excise tax debts are treated like income taxes for discharge purposes: recent GE tax debts survive, and older ones can sometimes be discharged when the strict timing rules are met. GE taxes for returns that were never filed are never discharged.
If a creditor accuses me of fraud, do I automatically lose the discharge for that debt?
No. A fraud claim must be brought as a separate lawsuit inside the bankruptcy case, by a deadline, and proven. If the creditor never files, the debt is discharged with the rest. An accusation is a starting point for the creditor, not a result.
Is what I owe my former spouse in the divorce dischargeable?
It depends on the chapter. Obligations that are truly support, child support and alimony, survive every bankruptcy. Non-support divorce debt, like a promise in the decree to pay a joint debt, survives a Chapter 7 but can be discharged when a Chapter 13 plan is completed.
Sources & Legal Authorities
The authorities behind this guide.
- United States Code. 11 U.S.C. § 507(a)(8)(C); § 522(c)(2)(B); § 523(a); § 523(a)(4); § 523(c); § 524; § 727(a); § 1328(a); § 1328(a)(2); 26 U.S.C. § 6672
- Rules. Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4004; Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4007(c)
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