School Rembursements

[annelle0]

I have a similar case in that my employer has reimbursed me tuition on my last check and i had to use it to help with household needs and such.. My attorney is concerned about this. What should i expect as a fallout for having used the funds? I am filing Chapter 7 as of yesterday??? anyone ?

[justbroke]

annelle0 I tried to move your question to a new thread since it's really new and this old thread was already answered. I'm going to answer here but we don't recommend opening old threads.

As you have read, the tuition is simply income. It's income because it's a fringe benefit from your employment. It is included in the 6-month lookback when calculating your "current monthly income" (CMI) and used to determine whether you qualify for a Chapter 7 discharge.

Your attorney isn't concerned that you spent the money in order to feed your family or for anything else related to the care and health of your family and dependents. Your attorney is worried about the impact of this additional money on your CMI. If this reimbursement was significant, that could make your CMI more significant and give the appearance that you can afford to pay your creditors something in a Chapter 13.

As to whether the Trustee (or United States Trustee, UST) would be interested is anyone's guess. I don't know whether your forms have the "abuse" box checked (on the Means Test). I don't know if you're under-the-median income level. What I can tell you is that a large amount of disposable income (disposable monthly income) will certainly bring forth some more scrutiny.

I will repeat myself. There is no fallout for using the funds in order to survive! That's simply a fact. If you used the funds and squandered those funds by vacationing or buying "luxury" items, then that may raise some concern and more questioning from the Trustee.

Follow your attorney's lead.

[LadyInTheRed]

justbroke, you were successful in moving the question to a new thread, so I moved your answer to this one.

[The moving posts feature became buggy after the last update. I've had unexpected results too.]

[justbroke]

LadyInTheRed thank you my friend.