Property directly traceable to retirement income is exempt

Judge Rice of the Maryland Bankruptcy Court reinforced earlier precedent which held that retirement funds remain retirement funds and are exempt (i.e. people filing bankruptcy or “debtors” get to keep them) even if they are taken out of a 401k or an IRA or are Social Security payments. This is the case, however, only if the funds can be directly traced to the retirement account. Since the debtors were both retired and all their income consisted of retirement funds, money they had deposited in a bank account was exempt.