Easy Means Test Calculation

[DebtStinks]

It was me that was missing something... the 0 on 60. Sorry about that!

I'm kind of curious about this two car thing. I have two cars, owe on one, but pay the operating expenses for both. So why can't I claim the ownership expense on both?

No problem at all...

As for the ownership expense stuff... read this:

Vehicle Ownership Expense Deduction: Fixed Allowance or Cap on Actual Expense?

I guess it's hit and miss based on your district as to if you can get away with taking the ownership expense on a car you own outright.

[SuzieBK]

Very well done! It puts us -$841 on the means. Let's hope it's not THAT bad!

[struggling09]

WOW!!! That was incredible!!! Thank you for providing such a user friendly calculator!!!!!

[DebtStinks]

Fortunately, I don't need this as I am under the median, but I tried it out anyhow. Anyhow, It told me that I was allowed $1 for housing. The calculator looks pretty good, but you may have a bug in there somewhere. I selected Jefferson County Colorado for my housing.

Thanks, you will probably help out a bunch of folks.

I can't seem to reproduce this error... if you put in 0 at the "Home: Total of ALL (first, second, heloc) average monthly payments secured by your home" line then you should see $1,514 on the "20B: Local Standards: housing and utilities; mortgage/rent expense." line which is correct for your area.

If anyone else runs into this let me know and I'll see if I can figure out what might have gone wrong.

On a side note I did just update the script so that it will automaticlly set your "22A: Local Standards: transportation; vehicle operation/public transportation expense" deduction to the number of cars you are curerntly making payments on. You will still need to adjust this if you own any of your cars.

[JoeBankrupt33]

This isn't right for sure... I haven't run any under median tests so let me take a look.

Actually, I put in a ficticious higher income so I could go through the rest of the test.

[cyn5]

This is great! Question about the disposable income left at the end. I believe that part of the means test also includes something about being able to fund a certain percentage of your debt (perhaps 25%) over 5 years if you do have disposable income left? Is that right? And if you do not you essentialy in the end fail the end. Not sure if I understand that correctly or not...just throwing that out there. Maybe someone else knows more about this.

So great that you did this!

[DebtStinks]

This is great! Question about the disposable income left at the end. I believe that part of the means test also includes something about being able to fund a certain percentage of your debt (perhaps 25%) over 5 years if you do have disposable income left? Is that right? And if you do not you essentialy in the end fail the end. Not sure if I understand that correctly or not...just throwing that out there. Maybe someone else knows more about this.

If you are under $6,575 you pass and if you are over $10,950 you fail. I believe you are talking about the secondary means test that needs to be done when your disposable income falls between $6,575 and $10,950. With this secondary test you take your threshold debt payment amount (this is 25% of your total unsecured debt) and compare it to your total 60-month disposable income. If your disposable income is greater than the threshold amount then you fail… otherwise you pass. If your total unsecured debt is over $43,800 then you will always pass this secondary test (anything above this amount and it would require your disposable income to be over $10,950 which is a straight fail, no secondary test).

My wizard does take use this secondary means test IF you fall between $6,575 and $10,950 disposable income.

[DebtStinks]

I just got done adding another option when you get to the end of the wizard. You can now click on the "View Full Form B22A" button and it will show a filled out (mostly complete) means test form so you can print it out for future use.