Date: Feb 20 2015
It happens a lot during the divorce. A spouse, often the husband, decides to try to hide assets in order to get a better settlement. It’s important to have an experienced attorney on your team to ensure that you aren’t victimized. Here are some of the common ways that dishonest spouses may try to conceal income or assets:
Paying too much on bills or paying phony loans. Husbands have been known to make up loans from family members that they “pay off” with the expectation that they’ll get the money back after the divorce. A similar way of hiding money is to overpay bills, hoping the refund will come after the divorce is over. Overpaying the IRS is especially popular. The husband can make a huge overpayment and request that the IRS use the overpayment for next year’s taxes to keep a refund from being processed immediately.
Deferring salary or bonuses. Your husband may have asked his boss to hold his salary, bonuses, or to delay raises until after the divorce.
Transferring assets. This is one of the simplest ways of hiding money and it can be very effective. Husbands sometimes give money to relatives for safekeeping, or give money as “gifts” with the understanding that the money will be returned after the divorce. Putting money in a friend’s account is also effective. Your husband has to report marital assets, but assets in a friend’s bank account wouldn’t technically be part of marital assets.
Not collecting money from clients. If your husband owns his own business, he can simply delay sending bills to clients until after the divorce. Owning a business gives your husband lots of opportunities to hide money. Creating fake expenses is another easy way to make money disappear. Or vendors can be prepaid, or intentionally overpaid with the expectation that the overpayment will be returned after the divorce.
Your future depends on your divorce settlement. It will literally impact the rest of your life. So it’s incredibly important that your settlement is as fair as possible. Unfortunately, many spouses do everything they can do cheat the process, creating a better settlement for themselves. Don’t let this happen to you. Please contact us today if you’re going through divorce or thinking about doing so. We can help guide you through the process and ensure that you receive a fair settlement.
