Pay Advice Information in Bankruptcy
When preparing your bankruptcy case, we will need copies of your pay stubs and proof of any other type of income for this month as well as for the six months prior to this month. If you are married (regardless of whether you are filing individually or jointly with your spouse), we will need your spouse’s pay stubs and income proof for this month as well as the prior six months.
This pay stub and income information is needed because the Bankruptcy Code requires attorneys to plug your pay stub information into a set of calculations that compares your gross earnings to the average household earnings of a similarly sized family in Georgia.
The “median income” and “means test” calculations require us to look at your gross income month by month. “Averages” will not suffice. We need the actual stubs, separated by month (i.e., current month, month 6, month 5, month 4, etc.) For example, if December fell within the past six months, we will need proof of all income that you received in December, including:
- pay stubs from paychecks earning
- evidence of pension deposits
- evidence of Social Security payments
- stubs from one-time bonuses
- distributions from 401(k)
It does not matter if you received a one-time payment as a bonus that you will never see again. That one-time payment needs to be revealed.
Once we have the raw data, we will run the numbers and discuss with you what the data has revealed and what it means in terms of a future filing by you.
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