just venting a little

[wellspring]

My cousin just had her 341 the other day.....same situation as mine...single mom with 1 child..we make about the same in income and had about the same amount of debt and about the same for income tax returns....hers was discharged and closed the same day by the trustee she got...and my trustee wants my tax return!!!!! Isn't it just odd the way these trustees are? Some are nice, and some aren't so nice, like the one I got. I am thankful that my debt will be gone and so far no one has objected to my petition; the last day is the 24th of September, coming up real soon. One question though: will I be discharged that day? (the 24th) or do I have to wait until he takes my income tax return in probably February of 08 when I file? And one more that I just thought of: what if no one objects to my bankruptcy? Does that mean he won't take my return at all or will he still take it? I know I should probably be asking my attorney these questions....but sometimes I get better answers here!

[lrprn]

Typically what will happen is that your case will be discharged but not closed until your trustee sees what your tax refund is going to be.

Be proactive for yourself now. Use the IRS "How Do I Adjust My Tax Withholding" at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p919.pdf to ensure there isn't much of a refund for your trustee to be tempted to take

[SinkingFast]

You are soooooo right!! Some Trustees are very "Letter of the Law" or very Greedy.

We were in the same boat as you. Trustee wanted to see our filed '06 Income Taxes.

We were Discharged on time, like everyone else at our 341 Meeting. But our case did not Close until after we submitted our taxes to the Trustee.

On the way out of our 341, our attny took a look at pay stubs and said,......... "Hike your Withholdings as much as possible. Get your income taxes withheld as close to Zero as possible for the rest of the year. (2.5 months at that point)

In our Court, this particular Trustee is only interested in amounts in excess of $1K. We managed to get our combined refunds right at $600 total.

You might call your attny's office and see if your Trustee has some sort of magic number they look for. Then adjust your Withholdings as Lrprn suggested to get back as little as possible.