College Tuition

[GWBcasualty]

I am aware that payments for College tuition cannot be considered as an allowable expense on the means test.

Regardless of our struggles, we are managing to make our expected family contributions for our son. It's about $600/mo for 9 months.

We don't need to include those $600/mo to pass the means test.... Depending on the timing of our filing we may even be under the median.

All we need to do to pass the means test no matter what, is include our mortgage payments and, although we are about sure now to let the house go, we are still current... probably we will stop paying in a month and file in about 3 months from now.
We should be able to live rent free for about a year and get a fresh start.

Anyway. I am planning to not include the tuition payments as an expense on the schedules... the only reason we afford them is because we save on everything else (food, entertainment, utilities.... everything is below the IRS standards).

My worry is that the Trustee will inquire about it when it shows up on our bank statements.

Any thoughts on this??

Thanks.

[HHM]

Yes, you list the payments as an expense. Being upfront about it is better than having the trustee find out about it. As you said, if you don't need the expense to qualify, then list it since it won't matter. The thing is, you need to re-inflate your expenses on Schedule J to some extent. Your attorney should be able to help you navigate the issue. But you should be okay, it is okay to have negative DMI on schedule I&J. The goal is to demonstrate to the US trustee that even if you didn't have the "questionable" expenses, you would still not be able to pay back creditors. But list any expense that actually has a paper trail.

[GWBcasualty]

Thank you.

Much appreciated.