My wife and I are contemplating filing for bankruptcy and have several questions. Here is our situation (we live in Utah if that makes a difference):
My wife has two children from prior relationships. One lives with us and the other lived with us until last year when she moved to her Dad's and stays with us the entire summer, school breaks and some holidays. My wife doesn't pay or receive child support for either one and there is no support agreement for either. They were both on our tax return for last year.
I have four children from a prior marriage. They all live with my ex-wife and I have them once or twice a months and some holidays and school breaks. I have to pay $1080 in child support a month. The divorce decree stipulates that we both get two of the children for tax returns but we can buy each other's exemptions if the benefit is higher for me or her. Since I make more money it has so far always benefited me more than her and I had therefore all four of them on our last tax return.
Here is my question in that regard. I've read that generally you can use the number of exemptions from your last tax return to figure out the household size. Is that different in my case since then it would be eight rather than three as we have only one child living with us full-time? If I can use a household size of eight, I would probably not be able to put down the $1080 of child support as a court ordered payment because the support that I pay is included in the higher amount of the national and local standards deductions, correct? If I can only use a household size of three, how much might I be able to put down for extra expenses for food, clothing, housing and other expenses and how well does it have to be documented?
Another question I have deals with health insurance. I currently get health insurance through my employer and they have different plans offering more or less benefits. My wife is also starting a new job next week and we are considering getting a second plan through her employer due to our out-of-pocket payments. Will the bankruptcy court only allow one plan and then only enough for the cheapest plan or do they not look at that. If my wife is not getting additional health insurance through her new employer, we are planning on getting a health savings account starting in July of at least $200 a month to pay for necessary dental care expenses for my son and his medications and other doctor visits. Will they scrutinize that as well?
My next question deals with my income. I have a monthly salary of about $5600 a month. I also get about $800 every other month for being on-call and I had some of my accrued vacation time paid out in April to pay for income taxes. Does either of those have to be included in my income calculation?
Now to my last question. If we cannot use a household size of eight, we would still be pretty close to a monthly disposable income to allow for Ch. 7. After looking at the forms, there is an allowance for charitable contributions and a qualified retirement deduction. Wouldn't either of these mean that I could just increase my 401k amount withheld or make some charitable contributions to get our disposable income down a bit? Wouldn't this be almost fraudulent? But if this is on the forms, what would stop someone from increasing these amounts to have less of a disposable income?
Thanks in advance,
bimmerbenz
My wife has two children from prior relationships. One lives with us and the other lived with us until last year when she moved to her Dad's and stays with us the entire summer, school breaks and some holidays. My wife doesn't pay or receive child support for either one and there is no support agreement for either. They were both on our tax return for last year.
I have four children from a prior marriage. They all live with my ex-wife and I have them once or twice a months and some holidays and school breaks. I have to pay $1080 in child support a month. The divorce decree stipulates that we both get two of the children for tax returns but we can buy each other's exemptions if the benefit is higher for me or her. Since I make more money it has so far always benefited me more than her and I had therefore all four of them on our last tax return.
Here is my question in that regard. I've read that generally you can use the number of exemptions from your last tax return to figure out the household size. Is that different in my case since then it would be eight rather than three as we have only one child living with us full-time? If I can use a household size of eight, I would probably not be able to put down the $1080 of child support as a court ordered payment because the support that I pay is included in the higher amount of the national and local standards deductions, correct? If I can only use a household size of three, how much might I be able to put down for extra expenses for food, clothing, housing and other expenses and how well does it have to be documented?
Another question I have deals with health insurance. I currently get health insurance through my employer and they have different plans offering more or less benefits. My wife is also starting a new job next week and we are considering getting a second plan through her employer due to our out-of-pocket payments. Will the bankruptcy court only allow one plan and then only enough for the cheapest plan or do they not look at that. If my wife is not getting additional health insurance through her new employer, we are planning on getting a health savings account starting in July of at least $200 a month to pay for necessary dental care expenses for my son and his medications and other doctor visits. Will they scrutinize that as well?
My next question deals with my income. I have a monthly salary of about $5600 a month. I also get about $800 every other month for being on-call and I had some of my accrued vacation time paid out in April to pay for income taxes. Does either of those have to be included in my income calculation?
Now to my last question. If we cannot use a household size of eight, we would still be pretty close to a monthly disposable income to allow for Ch. 7. After looking at the forms, there is an allowance for charitable contributions and a qualified retirement deduction. Wouldn't either of these mean that I could just increase my 401k amount withheld or make some charitable contributions to get our disposable income down a bit? Wouldn't this be almost fraudulent? But if this is on the forms, what would stop someone from increasing these amounts to have less of a disposable income?
Thanks in advance,
bimmerbenz
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