IL, Chap. 7, old law, anticipated tax return

[familylinc]

Illinois.
I filed a prose joint chapter 7 case on the old law. At the 341 meeting the trustee told me to get my income tax and sent her the check. It will be about 4000.00 as we do not claim all the exemptions entitled to get a larger refund plus the child tax credit for 3 kids. Can I file an amendment and exempt some of that money under the cash exemption or the wildcard exemption or am I going to lose it all. I understand you are allowed 2000.00 each as an cash exemption and we only used 300.00 for a bank account.
Trustee has now filed the motion to attach 10/12ths of the tax return.
Can I amend my filing, include the exemption for taxes and file an objection to the trustees motion to claim 10/12ths of the tax return.

[StaciMM]

You probably can't use the cash exemption (as it wasn't cash on hand when you filed) but should be able to use your wild card.

The EIC and/or child tax credit cannot be taken. How much has been withheld from your pay so far this year? 10/12 of that (plus any remaining withheld in the next couple of weeks) is what is to be taken.

Lets say your income for the year is $40,000 & you have 3 kids, file married/joint. $26,000 is not taxed (standard exemptions, deductions). The rest would be taxed at 10%, or $1400 tax due. The child tax credit ($3,000) lowers your liability to $0, and you can generally get additional child tax credit back. If you've paid in $1800 in $ withheld from your paychecks, 10/12 of that or $1500, can be claimed by the trustee if you can't/don't exempt it. (The additional child tax credit is safe.)

Yes, I do taxes for fun...

[StaciMM]

From what I can find on ILL exemptions, the $2000 WC is the total for personal property, not a WC in addition to personal property. Then, under the homestead it says the homestead exemption can be 'real or personal property, including a farm, lot and building, condo, ...' Don't know if you can claim extra personal property if you don't own your home.

Not sure if I'm reading it right. Exemption explanations seem to be a little confusing!

[pink_amulet]

I'm from IL. Our trustee didn't ask for our tax return, and our lawyer said that "this trustee" doesn't. However if it had come up, we had the WC extention he said. We didn't use any of our WC, and total assest for EVERYTHING only came up to $1800, so he said we could amend our petition.

As for the tax return, EIC (earned income credit) and child tax credit, can not be taken by the trustee. At least that it what we were told.

We are estimated to get back $5500, of that none is EIC, hubby made too much, so we don't qualify. Some is child tax credit.

Where in IL did you have your 341? Ours was in Genvea, IL. We live in Elgin.

good luck

pink_amulet

[AAAArt]

In IL, you get $2000 wild card exemption...$4000 if filing jointly. However, to think of it as a "wild card" is really a mis-nomer. Under your wild card exemptions, you must list everything that you own, except for your clothes. It is impossible to file in IL w/out using at least some of your wild card if you even own as little as a wristwatch and coffee pot. It is the only place to exempt personal property.
You cannot list future tax refunds, because as Staci stated, you did not have the cash when you filed. Your income tax refund is an asset which your trustee can choose to take (minus EIC and Child Credit) or choose not to ask about.
Mine, in Central IL wasn't asking anyone about them or saying anything at all re: tax refunds. I really don't understand why there is not conformity on this issue. My guess is that some trustees simply don't feel it is worth the extra work for the little money that would receive.
BTW, my Trustee in his day job is a tax attorney, so I would imagine that like a good poker player he had already calculated the "pot odds" and decided that for him in this county at this time it wasn't worth the effort for the probable gain.
I mean that if you are keeping busy at billing $300 an hour, why take away from time where you can bill $300 an hour to use it on an activity where you will prob. only make $75 an hour. In simple, pray for a Trustee w/ a thriving profitable practice, so he can't afford to "waste" time over getting the % which he would earn from getting your tax refund. Art