Plan for Progress  

The first thing to ask seems to be this: Can your creditors trustee seize hold of your tax refund as part of your assets? In fact, he can. A tax refund is considered one of the assets in a bankruptcy estate, and may be more or less of a target for a trustee, depending on how large it is. In the case of small tax refunds, this is less of a problem, but large tax refunds are generally vulnerable. Of course, there are certain exceptions as provided by law: tax refunds belonging to the Earned Income Credit category, for example, cannot be touched by a bankruptcy trustee in some states. There are typically exemptions such as this in most states, so you need to check your state legislature. Other than the exceptions, however, refunds are often fair game.

The first thing you can do to avoid your tax refund being claimed by your creditors is to just avoid getting a refund altogether. This applies if you have yet to file for bankruptcy: while preparing your bankruptcy documents, take a look at your Form W-4 and limit the deductions you claim. This ensures that you do not get a tax refund that year or, at the very least, get only a small one. Trustees may sometimes ask for copies of your tax return just to see if they should be claiming a tax refund. The best way to avoid this, naturally, is to take away the tax refund from the equation altogether.

Another way of omitting the tax refund from the equation is to file it far ahead of your bankruptcy: this way, you get the refund even before your bankruptcy is official and there is a trustee to worry about. What you should do then is to spend it before you file the bankruptcy papers. Do not even think of putting your tax refund in your bank account, because a trustee shall notice it later on.

Bankruptcy is always thorny business, to be sure, which is why there may be circumstances pertinent to your case that affect the answer to this question. Your best bet is to bring the query to your lawyer and let him assist you in determining the right course of action. In practically all cases, however, the above methods are valid paths to avoiding your tax refund being taken by a bankruptcy trustee.

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It is possible to get a tax refund if a debtor is eligible for a refund for any year subsequent to the year of filing for bankruptcy. One hundred percent of the proceeds of the estate is entitled to the debtor. For single individuals, the entire percentage of the rapid refund would go to the estate. However, for married individuals who filed individually, about fifty percent of the refund will become the property of the bankruptcy estate. It is the non-debtor spouse who gets to keep the other fifty percent of the refund.

When getting a rapid tax refund after filing for bankruptcy, everything is on a case-to-case basis. Keep in mind that there are exceptions in every rule. This is why its important that you discuss your own specific tax scenario with a credible bankruptcy lawyer before filing for relief.

It is better to file for bankruptcy after getting and using your income tax refund. One you file for bankruptcy, you will not be able to receive your tax refund anymore. The bankruptcy estate will already take hold of it.

You should also remember that you cannot spend your refund on buying new assets. Why? These new assets will just be possessed and become the bankruptcy estates property. Anyway, you can still use the tax refund for your ordinary expenses or necessities. There are also individuals who used their tax funds to pay for bankruptcy fees as well as costs. This is also acceptable.

There are also ways to protect your tax refund. This may also fall on a case-to-case basis since its either a portion if not all of the tax refund can still be saved. Here are some ways to go about this:

For those who typically get a large refund, it is time to change your exemptions. You should do this a few months before filing for bankruptcy.

Consider applying for Advanced Earned Income. You can just give your employer a W-5 to allow you to receive Earned Income credit on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis.

Dont file for bankruptcy until you know how much tax refund youll be getting.

It is possible to exempt either part or all of your tax refund but this may depend on which state you live in. You should start reviewing your situation before the year ends.

Your tax identification number or taxpayer identification number (TIN) may be issued by either the SSA (the Social Security Administration) or the IRS (the Internal Revenue Service). TINs are used in the application of tax law to identify persons on a governmental database, as would be mandated by regulations for certain activities, including the filing of tax returns and similar statements. There are several types of TIN you can have, including the SSN from the SSA and EIN from the IRS. For purposes of specificity, let us just discuss the IRS TINs, and how to recover one of them if you lose one.

Now there are several ways you can try to recover your lost tax ID number. The first and most obvious recourse would be to contact the IRS. You may give the IRS a call to help you retrieve your TIN at any of their telephone lines during weekdays. Be sure to do it within 1900hrs to 2200hrs of local time, because all you shall get if you call at other hours shall be a recorded service and not an actual living person. Take note that you shall be required to provide various personal details to verify your identity over the phone. This means that if you have suspicions that your lines are not as secure as you would like, you should probably eschew this route and just go to your nearest local IRS office instead. You may also find it easier to talk to a representative face-to-face about your problem. Take note, though, that you shall have to bring all pertinent documents including your SSN, most likely because you shall need to refer to those for some of the questions your IRS representative may ask you.

If this is too troublesome, you may also try to root around your shelves for past tax files or government documents that have your TIN in them. The best bet is to look for communication that may have been sent to you by the IRS. These usually have your TIN right at the top, next to your name or the businesss name, if it is an EIN. You may also try checking documents such as your driving licence, your banking files and documents (including loans), your student documents, and the like. Tax returns also have your TIN on them, so you can just look over these to find your missing number. The IRS also suggests that consumers look for the computer-generated confirmation notice you were given when you first received your TIN. This may well be lost too, of course, so the better recourse would usually be to go through the documents mentioned above, which are more likely to still be in your possession.
If yet to recover 2010 taxes and 2009 taxes you can approach www.filelate.com. Its best way rather filling out forms  and getting frustrated with computerised support service from IRS.