Second meeting and upset with DMI calculation

[andy158]

Had second meeting last week and am not happy with the DMI calculation on Sch J. Three things that were included that I did not expect. 1.) My federal and state tax refunds were add as additional income on top of my regular wages - $3,700. 2.) The sale of a truck I had that I used to pay my property taxes was used as additional income - $2,800. 3.) My vacation pay for 2009 (two weeks wages) was included as additional income - $1,800. This was a seperate check paid last month, but showed up on my YTD total.

All this additional income brought my DMI to $1,732 /month. These are one time things and are not going to be the norm in the next six months. In fact one of the reasons I am filing is because all overtime has been cut as of last year. I have made $10k less this year compared to last year. The DMI calculated is almost the total of my unsecured debts over the five year plan I want to file on. I cannot support Plan payments this high. Have put filing on hold. Any suggestions?

[optimistic1]

I must be missing something, because in my NOLO book, under income for Schedule I, it never says anything about needing to add in your tax returns, sale of property, vacation pay. To me it doesnt make any sense at all that they would assume that somehow in the future you would be selling another truck over and over again to constitute it as income, and if your witholding allowances are adjusted to meet actual liability that they would assume your tax refund would be the same every year. I assume you are using a attorney? I would do exactly as you have already, wait it out, and let it drop off from your six month look back, then they cant use those items anymore to increase your DMI. In the meantime, utilize the IRS withholding calculator and adjust your witholding allowances to refect your actual liability, although this will increase take home pay and increase your DMI, it might just be a wash.

[StartingOver08]

This is exactly what bankruptcy planning is all about. Now you know you can wait to have that extra income drop off so you will be below median income and have a lower DMI. Do you have all the expenses on your schedules? Check expenses here in the search function, there are many small items that are infrequent (annual expenses or quarterly expenes etc) that we sometimes forget to add to the budget but they are perfectly allowable.