With over a million people filing for bankruptcy during each year, many bankruptcy courts are taking a hard look at who is filing and why. And increasingly, courts are rejecting debtors' claims and throwing them out of court.

For example, a bankruptcy judge who decides that you have enough income to repay some or all of your debts in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy can dismiss your Chapter 7 bankruptcy on the ground that granting you a discharge would abuse the bankruptcy laws (11 U.S.C. § 707(b)). Usually, this issue comes before a judge when a bankruptcy trustee raises it.

Essentially, if your monthly income exceeds your monthly expenses, giving you disposable income that can be used to pay your debts, you risk having your case dismissed unless you agree to convert it to a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. But there is an exception for people whose debts are primarily business-related. To find the legal abuse, a judge must determine that your debts are primarily consumer debts, not business debts.

In ferreting out valid bankruptcy claims, many judges look to the totality of the circumstances, focusing on some of the following questions.

• Do you have disposable income each month?

• Is your income steady?

• Are you eligible for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy?

• Could you use non-bankruptcy solutions, such as negotiating directly with creditors, to repay your debts?

• Can you reduce your expenses without depriving yourself of necessities?

• Do other factors make you an appropriate candidate for a Chapter 7 discharge?

Increasingly, however, courts look only at one issue: Do you have disposable income each month that can be used to fund a Chapter 13 case?

A Chapter 13 case doesn't necessarily require 100% repayment of your debts. Therefore, if you were to use your disposable income for three years to pay your debts -- even if the total payment would be less than 100% of what you owe -- the bankruptcy court may dismiss your case. There is no hard and fast rule about how much you'd have to be able to repay in a Chapter 13 case before the judge will toss out your Chapter 7 case. But if you can pay the whole tally, beware.

In addition, a court will dismiss a bankruptcy claim and possibly jail the person who brought it if he or she defrauds the court. If you lie, hide or cheat, it will probably come back to haunt you more profoundly than your current debt crisis.

You must sign bankruptcy papers under penalty of perjury, swearing that everything in them is true. If you deliberately fail to disclose property, omit material information about your financial affairs or use a false Social Security number to hide your identity as a prior filer, and the court discovers your action, your case will be dismissed and you may be prosecuted for fraud.

But the law does not punish those who make honest mistakes. If you accidentally leave something off your papers or misstate something on your forms, you can correct your papers or explain the mistake to the trustee. Fraud, which will get you into legal trouble, is very different; basically, it is something that cannot be explained or for which the only explanation is: "The dog ate my homework."

While prosecution for fraud is rare, it's on the rise. Take note of these recent actions.

• A debtor in Massachusetts went to jail for failing to list on his bankruptcy papers his interest in a condominium and $26,000 worth of jewelry.

• Another Massachusetts debtor is serving time for listing her home on her bankruptcy papers as worth $70,000 when it had been appraised for $116,000.

• An Alaska debtor was jailed for failing to disclose buried cash and diamonds.

• A Pennsylvania debtor omitted from her papers $50,000 from a divorce settlement and was sentenced to some time in prison.

• And a debtor in Ohio was imprisoned for using a false Social Security number.

Some courts -- most notably the Central District Court of California based in Los Angeles -- have developed highly sophisticated programs for locating fraudulent filers. They involve scrutinizing bankruptcy papers, dismissing cases when the debtor fails to file all papers within 15 days after filing the petition and issuing orders barring a debtor from refiling for 180 days after a case has been dismissed.