When you are filing personal bankruptcy you must submit pay advices. Let me start by explaining what is meant by a pay advice. A pay advice refers to any document that can serve as written proof of your income. Pay stubs, or printouts of your income and withholding from your employer, are examples of pay advices. You need to produce pay advices for the six months prior to filing bankruptcy. In other words, if you were going to file bankruptcy in December of 2009, you would need to provide your attorney with your pay advices for the months of June 2009 through November of 2009. You must also provide the pay advices for the sixty days before you file bankruptcy to the trustee assigned to your case. NOTE: If you are filing with a spouse then your spouse must also produce his or her pay advices.

At this point, some of you may be wondering why you are required to submit such documentation. It serves two purposes: one is to calculate your current monthly income for the Means Test, and the other is for documentation that must be given to the trustee in your bankruptcy case.

If you do not have pay advices because you were paid in cash or were self-employed, then the bankruptcy court will usually accept a sworn statement that you were paid in cash or unemployed for six months prior to filing. But you might also be required to produce additional information such as profit and loss statements to satisfy the trustee and the bankruptcy court that all of your income is being reported.

If you have any questions and live in Denver, Aurora, Arvada, Brighton, Broomfield, Commerce City, Englewood, Golden, Highlands Ranch, Lakewood, Lafayette, Littleton, Northglenn, Westminster, Wheat Ridge, Colorado please feel free to contact me. Kevin D. Heupel, Colorado Bankruptcy lawyer, 303-955-7570, COBankruptcyHelpEmail, free-consultation form.