Schedules I & J

[whatamess]

When you had these filled out, or did them yourselves, did you use the full IRS amount for your state/area, what you actually use, and was it more or less?
I'm just curious.

WAM

[demismom]

Well, I gave our attorney our numbers, she filled it out and had me "adjust" anything that seemed too low, as we had $550 extra income. So, there were a few things she didn't have right and I put us way over, she said our Trustee would never allow XXX for XXX, so she whittled it down to just a measly $5 left over at the end of the month and wouldn't you know it, this past month we were $9 over!

[whatamess]

Numbers

Were they your actual numbers you used, or the IRS figures. How close were they to the IRS figures?
WAM

[lrprn]

Were they your actual numbers you used, or the IRS figures. How close were they to the IRS figures?
WAM

For housing and transportation, you must use the IRS figures for your state on the Means Test - this is the major change mandated by the updated bk law that went into effect in Oct 05. Our actual expenses were way over the IRS figures, but actually a little below average for the city in the state where we live. As I recall, I think our Ch 13 lawyer's paralegal adjusted everything to our actual levels when he put together our attached additional expenses form, but I would have to check our filed forms to make sure.

[demismom]

I honestly don't know, we qualified on the Means Test for CHapter 7, so we never had to do any of the IRS figures stuff. I'm talking about Schedule J's expenses here and I would say they used 90% of our own figures. The 10% they didn't use our figures for were miscellaneous and a couple of insignificant ones I can't remember at the moment.

[danaf]

lrprn - Say you moved to a new state (which you are filing in) but have to use your old state's exemptions, ect because you haven't been in new state over 2 yrs to use theirs. Do you use IRS figures for old state or for state you currently reside in?

[Cali]

My expenses were pretty close to the IRS figures.

The only thing that was more was our housing and transportation.

[sjr1]

LRPRN - you have to use the IRS figures for housing?

Hello -

I thought that if you have a mortgage, you used your actual mortgage payment as your housing cost, but if you rented, you had to use the IRS figures.

Am I incorrect in this?

[HHM]

On schedule I & J you typically use your ACTUAL numbers.

However, in some districts, if your actual numbers in certain categories are below the Census figures, you can use the higher Census numbers. But otherwise, you use your actual numbers on Schedule I & J.

[FreshLikeADaisy]

lrprn - Say you moved to a new state (which you are filing in) but have to use your old state's exemptions, ect because you haven't been in new state over 2 yrs to use theirs. Do you use IRS figures for old state or for state you currently reside in?

Danaf, I'm not Lrprn but the only thing you use from the old state is the exemptions. Since you're filing bk *today*, all other figures, including IRS expense allowances, come from where you live *now*.

The exemption thing exists solely for the purpose of preventing bk state shopping; iow, foreseeing that you will have to file bk soon and then moving to a state with generous exemptions. This more or less prevents that, since you'd have to know at least 2 yrs ahead of time that you intended to file in order to move to a more "generous" state. Even then, there are caps on homestead exemptions for many states depending on how long you've actually lived there....

Hope this helps...

[ejny65]

However, in some districts, if your actual numbers in certain categories are below the Census figures, you can use the higher Census numbers.

Is trustee going to match the numbers on schedule J with my 6 month bank statement to see if everything is exact?

[FreshLikeADaisy]

Ejny, he could, but I doubt he's looking for *exact*; that is an impossible standard to meet. Think about it.

[PaKettle]

Is trustee going to match the numbers on schedule J with my 6 month bank statement to see if everything is exact?

I would guess that that is VERY unlikely.
Ask your attorney about it - like "How exact to I have to be with expenses? Can I estimate some things?" etc.

[soleprop]

On schedule I & J you typically use your ACTUAL numbers.

However, in some districts, if your actual numbers in certain categories are below the Census figures, you can use the higher Census numbers. But otherwise, you use your actual numbers on Schedule I & J.

HHM, any idea where i could dig to read more about this? i'd like to know if Minnesota is a district where i can use the higher census numbers for some things. i tend to live more frugally than i should; example i don't have health insurance because i actually feel bad taking care of myself but not my debts -- i know, lame. and really, i'd like to have health insurance and feel like with filing BK i'll be free to finally get it. meanwhile there's a $50ish expense allowance for health ins. i'd like to add into my expenses to allow for me to have insurance, just not sure if this would be permissible or be considered dishonest.

hope that makes sense.

[danaf]

are you serious? dude - get health insurance. that's like a no brainer.