
CREATE BOOKLET FOR DIVORCE OF ASSETS PROFESSIONAL
It’s just as important to get the professional help you need to make critical decisions that will align with your new set of financial goals and objectives. You must also be aware that part of what drives your financial decisions will be influenced by the legal and emotional components of your divorce as well.Ī family law attorney will guide you through the important legal issues you will be facing, and friends, family, support groups or even therapists will help support you emotionally. Your short- and long-term goals will change dramatically, and you will be forced to reexamine your financial future with a new set of facts that will be a significant departure from your status as a married person.Īccepting your new reality having good and accurate information are important keys to making smart decisions about your financial future. Accordingly, you and your divorce lawyer or investigator should weigh carefully the evidentiary value of the actual check in relation to its cost.Under normal circumstances, financial planning is a key component in securing the long-term well-being of you and your family.īut when you are faced with the prospect of a divorce, the need for financial planning can become even more critical. While it is still possible to obtain the canceled checks, the banks usually charge a considerable fee for their retrieval. This is a cost reduction move by the institutions. However, banks and other financial institutions have stopped, to a considerable degree, returning canceled checks to customers. This situation may arise in highly contentious divorces or when an investigation evolves from a divorce investigation into a criminal investigation. Sometimes it is possible to obtain the actual canceled checks related to an account under investigation. Regardless of how they are recorded – with or without paper – all transactions give rise to evidence which can be pursued in discovering hidden assets. For example, automatic withdrawals from checking accounts to make loan payments are paperless transactions. As information technology becomes the norm, more and more individuals will move toward paperless transactions. The copy has a place to keep a running balance and to record deposits. That is, when a person writes a check a copy of it is produced. That is, every deposit and every expenditure is recorded by hand in a register provided at the back of the check book. Check registers generally come in three forms. “Check register” is an accounting term that refers to the couple’s checkbook and the manner in which the deposits and expenditures related to their account were recorded. Therefore, obtaining the check registers of the couple is necessary. However, while bank statements record deposits and checks written, they do not usually provide the detail necessary to analyze specific transactions. They are also useful in identifying inter-account transfers and automatic payments, and may describe other unusual transactions. Bank statements are useful for their summary information in that they quickly show all income and all expenses which can be used to illustrate missing income, or to illustrate the relationship between the income the couple was generating versus what they were spending. The monthly bank statements serve as evidence of what went into the account and what was paid out. The couple’s bank account usually serves as the financial framework of the marriage. If there is interest income on the tax return and no asset disclosed that would generate interest income, the basis for an inquiry arises. This usually means that the taxpayer will report the amounts on his or her tax return.

For example, interest income is reported from the payer of the amounts to the Internal Revenue Service. A tax return showing little, or no, income should prompt the question, “If assets are being hidden, where did they come from?” Tax returns also provide authoritative documentation concerning sources of income. However, a tax return showing significant income increases the odds that a claim of hidden assets might be valid. The tax returns of an individual or a couple may be imperfect representations of the actual economic income of the person(s) filing the return. The information revealed in these disclosures ranges from the simplistic (e.g., if an asset is listed, it isn’t being hidden) to the basis for more sophisticated analyses and comparisons. These disclosures serve as the starting point in any financial investigation seeking assets that have been excluded from the marital estate (i.e., hidden assets).

Typical divorce procedures require that a divorcing couple disclose their assets and liabilities. What documentation is needed for an investigation into possible hidden assets in a divorce case?Ī divorce lawyer or investigator usually will need the following documentation in order to begin an investigation into hidden assets:
