Q: if a credit company buys traffic tickets can I then include that in bankruptcy since it is no longer a govt. issue?

A: I've never come across this question in my practice but I do see your point. Basically has the dischargable nature of the debt changes due to the assignment of a non-government agency. So I don't know the answer but it does raise some issues. First you would need to get all the documents that show the connection between the collection agency who you have been dealing with and the government entity which first had the debt. It may be that the governmental unit that created the debt still owns it and has only hired the collection agent to collect that debt. It may be that the debt was "sold" completely to the collection agency. So you first have to figure that out. Then you need to research bankruptcy case law to see if this is an issue that has already been ruled on by a bankruptcy court. It is possible that there is a bankruptcy Attorney who already knows the answer because they already researched this.

Since you should be working with an Attorney to do your bankruptcy, your Attorney should be the one to figure this out. Most Bankruptcy Attorney's here in Oregon belong to some network with other bankruptcy Attorneys so they can put the question out on the network and sometimes get a very quick answer. Also the Attorneys in Oregon have access to a service called "Fast Case" through their Oregon State Bar membership and they can search this issue in the Bankruptcy Case data base.