How to determine Year to Date income

[facinglife]

Hi! I'm preparing to filing a married filing separately chapter 7. I'm trying to determine what our monthly/year to date income is. My income is fairly straight forward because I don't receive any bonuses, etc. Do I use his average over the past year. I don't want to use his past 6 months and just double it because that had some bonus money in it and he definately won't get any more bonuses the rest of this year. I want to be accurate. Thanks!

[btbeme]

His year-to-date income is exactly the amount stated on his latest paycheck, bonuses and all.

[SMinGA2]

YTD would be everything paid in 2012, and most check stubs show that amount.

For monthly average you would adjust based on how often you're paid. Such as most get paid every 2 weeks, so 2 paychecks is not exactly 1 month's income. (There are 26 pay periods in a year if you're paid every 2 weeks.) If you got paid today and are paid every 2 weeks, then today was the 17th check of the year. Say YTD gross as of today's check is $25,000. $25,000/17 = 1470.59 which is the average per pay period. Take that 1470.59 * 26/12 to get the average per month. In this example its $3186.28 per month.

For the means test you'd add up all actual pay in the 6 months before the month of filing. So if filing in September you'd add the gross pay for Mar-Aug. Go by the check dates.

[facinglife]

Thanks for your responses. That kind of stinks, though. Anyway, my lawyer asked me for the last six months of pay stubs (February-July) but I'm supposed to fill out the year to date information. Would I then use the last paycheck in July (since that's what she asked for) or should I figure it out using August also since we'll file before the end of the month?

[SMinGA2]

If you're filing in August, then the 6 month look back for the means test is Feb-Jul. If the attorney also asked for YTD, then give YTD thru the last pay check received. Probably just the attorney trying to be thorough. The actual average income is important for the petitions, to show your regular budget going forward.