Comments on: When is a family of 3 not a family of 3?

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 02:47:02 +0000

Michelle, you are asking for legal advice here, and should discuss with your lawyer. Generally, I think that 100% your boyfriend’s income need not be counted as household income. You would need to disclose what and how household income was calculated.

By: Michelle K

Michelle K — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 06:10:57 +0000

Figuring income ---- I have been unemployed since November 2010 and attending nursing school full time. I currently live with my boyfriend.

I want to file for BK but my attorney stated this all of my boyfriend's income needed to be included in my income. Is that correct?

I understand that any portion of the boyfriend's gross income that he contributes to my expenses should be included, but I can't understand why all of his income should be. Because he is using all of his income, it shows me way over the income threshold for filing chapter 7.

I currently live in his house, drive one of his cars, he pays all of the expenses for my daughter and myself. How would I calculate what he contributes to my overall expenses?

Would I take all of our household expenses and divide in 1/2? Would this should how much he contributes to me??

By: Michelle DeWald

Michelle DeWald — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:39:46 +0000

Let us ask the reverse question. Employed, non-dependent adult child residing at home - part of household including his income?

having practiced bankruptcy for over 15 years, the tax returns are as good a starting point for the Trustees as any. In today's world who should be included in your "household" for the purposes of "household income" is widely debated.

Given that line 28 on the means test form allows for the deduction of child support payments, I probably would not have included this child as a household member but attempted to pass the client through the means test.

By: Joan

Joan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:50:45 +0000

our 30 year old daughter lives with us while caring for her niece and nephew (my grandchildren) while the parents work. Since it is family my daughter does not get paid, she does this for love of her niece and nephew and their struggling parents.

we do support her 100% but can we use her as a dependent when filing bankruptcy? I'm not sure because of her age.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:39:43 +0000

Does anyone know if there has been an update on this, or other known case law? My situation is divorced, split 50% physical and legal child custody of 2 childern under 18, each parent claiming 1 child as a dependent on their tax return. Both parties are about to declare Chap 7 BK in California. Can both parties claim a household size of 3 for Chap 7 BK purposes regarding the means test in California?

By: Tracee

Tracee — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:19:07 +0000

Hello,
I live in Florida with my husband and teenage son. My husband also has shared custody of his four young children. He did have substantial parenting time — 47 percent after the nasty custody battle — but his ex moved the children to Michigan two years ago, without permission from the court or my husband, so our substantial parenting time has been greatly diminished. However, the children still have rooms in our home, still live here during the summer, every long weekend, and most holidays, and we not only pay child support (the court only ordered $550 a month due to our previous substantial parenting time) but buy everything for them when they’re here (plus increased grocery and utility bills, etc). and we spend a great deal on travel expenses for the transitions. My husband also gets two claim two of his children as legal dependants for tax purposes.

As for my husband’s bankruptcy, the court battle cost us over $100,000 plus we’ve had thousands in medical bills so we were wiped out. We have lived off of our credit cards and by refinancing our home. We have only freelance income and, because our house payment is now so high, we cannot afford to continue paying the credit card debt on top of everything else. If forced into chapter 13 bankruptcy we would lose everything because we simply cannot afford any more payments (but from what we’ve seen the court doesn’t care — they will not look at actual payments spent to care for our family, on court and medical fees, transition expenses, etc. but instead will only go by the national median, which isn’t realistic in our case). However, the only way we will qualify for chapter 7 is if we can claim at least the two children that are our legal dependants for tax purposes.

Will the Florida bankruptcy trustee say our family only consists of three or will he/she allow us to include at least two of my husband’s four children since we claim two of them as dependants, pay child support, and they all live here part of the time? We have tried to find a local attorney to answer this but no one seems familiar with either situation — kids living in our home part time as well as our freelance editing income — so no one can tell us. And we’re afraid to file without knowing because we don’t want to be forced into a chapter 13 and then lose everything. We’d rather take our chances and see what happens with the credit card companies. Any suggestions or ideas where we can find this information?

Thanks so much.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:41:06 +0000

LaRonda:
I suspect that the U.S. Trustee in Minnesota has a position on this issue – your lawyer may want to call the trustee to ask.

I would take the position that your daughter and grandchildren are dependents if you support them. Also, take a look at attorney Bill Beecher’s post of 4/21/06.

By: LaRonda Hahn

LaRonda Hahn — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:25:05 +0000

We are about to file bankrutcy and do not know if our daughter that is 19 and her son that is 1yr
are part of the family for the means test? Dose she have to be a dependent on our taxes ? Our Attorney is not sure. Also we live in Minnesota.

By: bill beecher

bill beecher — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:40:02 +0000

I have this issue before the court on May 2, 2006 in the van meter case. BR Court, western district of washington, case # 05-54165. Look up my brief on PACER. I am amending the brief to note that dependents for tax purposes is not part/requirement of household member. Earlier versions of the bill HR 833 Sec 102 ( 106th Congress) required household member to be a “dependent” and was to be codified as 707(b)(2)(A)(v). Final version eliminated dependency requirement.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 19:48:37 +0000

I don’t think that age has anything to do with family size. If you have an adult child who lives with you, I see no reason why that adult child would not be treated as a countable member of your family.

The issue arises when the adult child lives with you only part time, or attends college out of state.

However, I have not seen any case law yet on this subject – I sure this issue will be debated over the months and years to come.