tax refund counts as income?

[wilbur4321]

Someone in the Bk7 forum said something that implied, to me, that my tax refund that's coming will count as income as far as the 6-month lookback is concerned?

Is that accurate?

thx
--randy

[EveryDayAdam]

nope. It's not. The trustee may look to it for funds as part of the BK estate, but a tax refund is a refund on taxes in income you've already received. Basically, a refund on taxes you over paid. It's not income.

[JollyGG]

Your six month look back period is already based on your GROSS wages. Therefore your tax return was already accounted for. They counted that money before you paid it (in your gross - before taxes, wages)

[SANRA308]

It will depend on the state and the trustee we got $2400 dollar refund before filling and it was counted as part of our 6 month income just like a bonus ect. so $400 a month of our disposable income came from that refund inclusion. When I pointed this out to the trustee. He stated it is assumed that you will adjust your withholdings to compensate. Lawyer also stated this was to keep people from having large amounts held out of check before filling then adjusting afterwards to allow themselselves more money to live on. I did not have a big problem with it but I thought it should have been divided by 12 instead of 6 since you only get 1 refund a year not 2. We live in Oklahoma and here your tax refund is always counted as income and must be claimed as income in the year you recieved it so mabey thats why. Alot of other people have not had this problem so maybe you will be lucky. I would ask your lawyer they should know whats common for your state and trustee