Wages owed at filing?

[jennz1999]

We filed a Chapter 7 no asset case on 4/27/2011 in Texas. I only get paid once a month on the first every month and that pays our first and second mortgages, the vehicle we are keeping, electricity, insurance etc. Basically it is all gone after I pay the monthly bills. Since I get paid once a month, on the first and that covers the prior month's pay, do I need to worry about the trustee wanting my pay from the 1st of May due to it being wages earned from the month of April (and thus almost a full month owed at the time of filing)? Now I'm kind of freaking out about trying to figure out a way to pay that back to him if he wants it..... Oh the amount that was direct deposited(after taxes, health insurance, etc) was $2526.

[debee]

I think your earned but unpaid wages are fully exempt according to Texas Property Code 42.001(b) (1). The commissions (if any) are exempt to 75%.

I would confirm this with your lawyer.

Also, if you used Federal Exemptions instead of Texas exemptions, you may be able to exempt it separately with wildcard in the event that "current wages" as described in the property code are not the same as "earned but unpaid" wages.

edit: Since posting I've been googling "earned but unpaid wages texas bankruptcy" and site after site is coming up with the same info: fully exempt.

[sh9730]

Yeah, my lawyer said same thing - I do have commissions, but I brought in my employment agreement which states I do not get paid for those commissions until the company gets paid from the customer. So, even though technically I made the "sale" in the month prior, I did not actually "earn" them until the customer paid the following month as my agreement stated. The reason being is if our customer never paid us, I would never receive those commissions.

[jennz1999]

No commissions, just wages. I also just googled that same thing and came up with the same answer that all of the wages should be exempt. Whew I can breathe a little easier now. That would have been tough as we are living paycheck to paycheck right now until hopefully my husband either gets a new job or the residential construction business picks up (not likely soon enough for us). We also had to use state ememptions due to the amount of equity in our home (around $45,000). Too bad we weren't able to use that equity to get ourselves out of this situation instead of the route we had to take and even then, increasing our payments more than what they are now, wouldn't have made any difference.