Worried that your spouse is going to hide assets while the two of you go through the property division phase of your divorce? It’s a valid concern.
The best thing you can do is to understand how people tend to do this. Understanding the process allows you to see red flags and identify when you may need to dig a little deeper to find the assets that you deserve in your divorce.
5 different tactics are common when spouses hide their wealth
Though illegal, people do attempt to hide assets in a divorce. There are hundreds of ways to do it. Here are five potential tactics:
- Taking small withdrawals, such as getting cash back at the grocery store, and setting aside these little amounts for years.
- Overpaying credit cards to generate a refund check, which can be set aside.
- Overpaying the IRS to create the same sort of refund that can slip through the cracks.
- Moving money into a small business to make it look like the business owns it, not the individual.
- Giving money away, but with the understanding that the friend to whom it was given will repay that “loan” after the divorce is done.
People sometimes know that these tactics are illegal and that they’re breaking the law. Other times, they don’t understand the severity and they honestly believe they’ve come up with a “smart” way to hide their money. Either way, it violates your rights if you do not get the assets that you deserve. Make sure you know about all of the legal steps you can take. An experienced firm can help you sort it out and protect those rights.