I don't know WHAT it is with these Lawyers!

[Flamingo]

well, in my booklet given to me by the trustee it states that my attorney is responsible for any questions, filings and so forth or anything having to do with my bankruptcy for the ENTIRE time that I am in the chapter 13 plan.

that's coming FROM the trustee and in his rule book.

this most certainly IS a question having to do with MY bankruptcy. It also says in the booklet that I am to go to HIM first before trying to communicate with any member of the trustees office throughout the remainder of my bankruptcy.

so.......

It's quite possible the status of these checks has been determined yet for your BK district. Therefore, your attorney may not have an answer for you. You are correct that when you retain and pay a fee to an attorney you are represented by him/her until you are discharged. However, when an attorney doesn't get back to you immediately, they are not ignoring you - they may not have an answer for you immediately or need to contact the Trustee, each maybe having hundreds and hundreds of clients just like you, each also having lots of questions and all having different cases. You will either get to keep the check or have to turn it over - let's hope you get to keep it.

[holding on]

They can't take the rebate for taxes within your plan!!!

Really? Everything I read said the IRS could take it whenever. So you're saying if I have $10K of back taxes in the plan and next year I get a refund, the IRS isn't going to take it? interesting.

[lrprn]

Major Mike posted "They can't take the rebate for taxes within your plan!!!"

Sorry, MM. Here's the scoop straight from the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/...180247,00.html -
"All or part of an economic stimulus payment may be applied to back taxes or certain other debts of the taxpayer, such as delinquent child support and student loans. In such cases, the IRS will send a letter to the taxpayer explaining the offset."

Bottom line - seems that the IRS has the right to take part or all your stimulus payment if you owe back taxes that are being paid inside your plan. You'll get a letter explaining what they did if they do take it. If you get the rebate anyway, great. But what this says is it's possible for the IRS to circumvent sending you your rebate in the right circumstances.

If you have back taxes in your plan and the IRS chooses to take your stimulus rebate to pay against what you owe them, then it's hard to imagine why a trustee would ask the IRS (the 800 pound gorilla in the room) to give you back money you owe the IRS and can't discharge anyway. Pay it now or pay it later.

[rrockinggramma]

The trustee in your state should have a website. On that website is usually listed a "who does what" (or found somewhere in the links on his web page). Call them and ask.

[Flamingo]

Major Mike posted "They can't take the rebate for taxes within your plan!!!"

Sorry, MM. Here's the scoop straight from the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/...180247,00.html -
"All or part of an economic stimulus payment may be applied to back taxes or certain other debts of the taxpayer, such as delinquent child support and student loans. In such cases, the IRS will send a letter to the taxpayer explaining the offset."

Bottom line - seems that the IRS has the right to take part or all your stimulus payment if you owe back taxes that are being paid inside your plan. You'll get a letter explaining what they did if they do take it. If you get the rebate anyway, great. But what this says is it's possible for the IRS to circumvent sending you your rebate in the right circumstances.

If you have back taxes in your plan and the IRS chooses to take your stimulus rebate to pay against what you owe them, then it's hard to imagine why a trustee would ask the IRS (the 800 pound gorilla in the room) to give you back money you owe the IRS and can't discharge anyway. Pay it now or pay it later.

You are probably correct with this as inasmuch as if you are paying back taxes through your plan for a specific year (or years), the IRS cannot withhold from you a refund due you for the other years not included in your plan (i.e., in our plan we included our 2001 federal and state taxes; we received a refund one year in our plan (for 2005) and the IRS told us that since the refund was for a different year they would not keep that refund to put against the year 2001 since it was included in our Chapter 13 Plan. The Chapter 13 filing protected us from that. If you owe back taxes and do not fall under the protection of a Chapter 13, any refund or rebate will be applied to anything owed the IRS. Since this is a rebate check and not a refund, per se, there is a gray area there that they could probably put it towards taxes owed and being paid through the Plan.

Rebate checks were given out in the past but since it has been a while, I haven't seen any postings from anyone who was in a Chapter 13 at that time and either got the check and kept it or the IRS kept it to p[ut toward any back taxes in their Plan and being paid back to the IRS through the Plan. I am sure this will come out via this forum when/if this starts to occur with these rebate checks.