Mick Lovin wrote: Many wealthy file bankruptcy to avoid the IRS and plaintiffs to obtain what is rightfully theirs. I would bet any sum that Lance is living well in Austin, and smiling
You don't understand his predicament at all.
Bankruptcy has no impact on IRS claims on earlier income long gone, on bloated charity costs and severance liabilities found to be only partly deductible in retrospect, and on capital gains on assets realized for tax purposes but long withered by the crash of Lance's repute. Alimony and child support levels are set during the palmy days and paid in duress during the drought. Law suits entail hiring expensive lawyers and discovery proceedings that require endless costly paperwork. Wealth protection finagles only work when you are still wealthy and liquid. Speech income goes over a cliff once you're no longer hot.
Once the lawyers and revenuers enter, as countless tales of other once-wealthy, now indigent ex-athletes and lottery winners attest, no financial finagles work any more and the skills involved in ascending the Alpe d'Huez on a bike fail to cut it with the friendly visitors from the IRS.
Better not make that bet of "any sum" very large or leveraged or you will soon find yourself in Lance country, where you may be assured no one is smiling any more.