Tax Refund Question #4354

[littlemuffin]

I had my 341 on 1/25/2011. Since then a NDR has been posted on pacer. At no point has the trustee, my attorney, or the UST sent a letter or had any other correspondence about my tax refund.

Do I just hold onto it until my discharge? After discharge, if no one has requested it can I spend it-property taxes(yuch)?

Thanks

[daylate]

It seems to me they don't want it. Check with your attorney. good luck.

[discouraged]

I just filed and due to my circumstances (unemployed with only partial temp jobs for two years), my attorney told me they included my taxes in with my exempt items and it was mine. Not trusting anything until after the 341, I am just keeping it in the bank. I know it's silly but I'd rather just wait and make sure.

But, if you read the posts, search tax refund would be my guess, there are a lot of good answers about this. Most seem to say that if the trustee didn't ask for it at the 341, they don't want it. As stated by daylate though, check with your attorney.

[JvilleGarden]

Our trustee posted a NDR the day after our 341 meeting (1/6/2011). We also received the normal correspondence stating that we needed to send the Trustee a copy of our tax return, and our refund check, if applicable. We had an outstanding balance with the IRS for our 2009 taxes, so we were expecting that they would apply our 2010 refund to the 2009 taxes. Imagine our surprise when we received a refund check for the entire amount!!

I contacted the IRS and asked why it was not applied to our outstanding balance, and they told me that due to our BK, our account had a flag to send the refund to us. I asked if there was a way to send it back, as I could not "cash" the check, nor deposit it. Unfortunately, the IRS said that sending the check back would "confuse" them.

Reluctantly, I sent the check to our Trustee, indicating that this was our refund check, as required by his terms.

We got our check back from the Trustee today, stating that he filed the NDR and was not taking any collateral in our case.

That being said, I would also recommend contacting your attorney prior to withholding your refund, but best of luck to you.

[tcreegan]

Hi littlemuffin,

Definitely a case of letting sleeping dogs lie

Or the BK policy of "not asked, don't tell"

My take is to sit on it at least until discharge, till closed would be better.

Your lawyer, the trustee should have had a copy of your tax return, so you're not hiding anything. If the UST hasn't been involved to this point, you're probably not going to hear from them.

Good luck with it,

Tom in Colo