contract-law
Is &quot;estimated&quot; or &quot;projected&quot; income a legal precedent/factor upon a credit card application?
<p>If you are self-employed you have no fixed income -- therefore, you can't expect that any income information given is GUARANTEED or BACKED by any solid proof -- no one can predict the future so you cannot give certainty.</p>
<p>Say one enters a high PREDICTED or PROJECTED income in to a credit card application as per their own original insight in to their expectation or future work prospects as they are an independent contractor.</p>
<p>Given such, how can one draw the line between LYING about your income and PREDICTING an UNCERTAIN income?</p>
<p>Isn't it just a moot point? I mean I can PREDICT I will make 200% of my income in the next 6 months -- totally possible. So I assume this cannot be rightfully or outright LYING if you do in fact have some form of an income and can make payments on your card DESPITE potentially OVER-REACHING your income as it's PREDICTED, not FIXED like a salary or such.</p>
<p>So TL;DR -- is it ILLEGAL to put a PREDICTED or PROJECTED INCOME from a SELF-EMPLOYED person on a credit card application? Can this be JUSTIFIED? I know some people lie on these applications and nothing comes of it, but still.......</p>

<p>Generally speaking, fraud in connection with an affirmative statement, in both criminal and civil cases, is limited to false statements of a presently existing material fact.</p>
<p>Future income is not a presently existing fact. So, simply incorrectly stating your future income is not fraud.</p>
<p>But, you are affirming when you make such a statement that you presently sincerely believe that you will have a future income of approximately the amount stated. And, if you make a statement about your future income when you do not actually believe that you will have that future income, then you have still committed fraud.</p>
<p>In practice, there are lots of gray areas where a judge or jury considering the case would have to weigh the facts and your credibility.</p>
<p>If you represented that you predicted that you would have an income of $1,000,000 in the next year, when you had never done so before and didn't even have any plausible plan other than playing the lottery for doing so, this would almost surely be credit card application fraud.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you represented that you predicted that you would have an income of $50,000 in the next year, when your income in past years had ranged from $30,000 to $45,000 from self-employment, and you believed sincerely that improvements in your marketing efforts and current economic trends were going to make the coming year your best year ever for income from self-employment that would give you a $50,000 income in the coming year, that would not be fraud.</p>
<p>Where exactly the line between not fraud and fraud is drawn would be for the tier of fact to decide when and if the case went to trial.</p>
