Support of low-income elderly parent

[PurplePanda]

I am meeting with an attorney tomorrow via phone conference to discuss by future CH7 BK, which I was planning to file in about 10 months. I plan on discussing this issue with him tomorrow but I am interested if anyone here had this issue.

I am single and file my income taxes as head of household, as I claim my elderly low-income mother as a dependent. She does not live with me but instead lives in a subsidized apartment for seniors. Her only income is social security and it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $700ish per month. I pay for many of her larger unexpected expenses and last year I paid for her rent, which was around $150/month. Last year, rather than send her $150 every month, I sent her a single lump sum payment of $1800 to cover her rent for the year. That way, if any large expenses came up, she could decide how she wanted to use the money. Is that $1800 payment to her going to be an issue considering she is my dependent? Going forward, is paying her monthly the better way to go or is even that going to create an issue?

Again, I plan on discussing this with my attorney tomorrow but I'd thought I'd check here to see if anyone has any experience or words of wisdom. Thank you!

[justbroke]

I'm sure your attorney will tell you that claiming your elderly parent as a dependent on your taxes, combined with evidence that you have done this for some time, will be enough to allow that payment. I don't know if monthly is the better way for you.

[flashoflight]

Will you fail the means test without the contribution to mom? Are you above median?

If so, I would pay expenses directly to the landlord, pharmacy, doctor bills, etc rather than monthly cash to mom or worse, a lump sum to mom on the eve of bankruptcy. Trustees are looking for any excuse to throw above medians out of chapter 7. In my own case, I paid expenses directly to the providers and give mom nothing in cash. I gave receipts to the trustee. You got 10 months so this is very fixable and you should be able to deduct expenses for mom.

[PurplePanda]

Will you fail the means test without the contribution to mom? Are you above median?

By the time I file in nine months, I will be below median. Even so, I would not fail the means test without the contribution to my mom. I did talk to my attorney about it and he said the trustee would most likely not have an issue with me financially supporting her, especially considering that her income is about $750/m solely from social security. So, even if the trustee took issue with it, she is uncollectable. My attorney did suggest that I start paying her monthly, rather than pay a single larger payment but he said it really didn't make much of a difference.