Alimony is based upon the ability of the payor spouse to pay alimony and the need of the payee spouse to receive alimony. In divorce cases, payor spouses often dislike needing to pay alimony and child support to the other spouse try to minimize their income while the payee spouse tries to minimize their income. To obtain an optimal alimony award during a divorce case, people often either try to claim that they make less than they really earn or try to claim that they can no longer earn the income that they previously earned. There is a common acronym that divorce attorneys use to describe this phenonium which is RAIDS, Recently Acquired Income Deficiency Syndrome. Attorney Rebekah Brown-Wiseman is adept at uncovering a party’s actually income or ability to earn an income through the use of several methods, including:
- Making sure that all income streams are included. The following are some income sources to be considered:
- Salary or wages
- Bonuses, commissions, allowances, and tips
- Business income from self-employment, partnerships, close corporations and independent contracts
- Pension, retirement and annuity payments
- Regular payments from a family trust
- Interest and dividends
- Income from rental properties
- Reimbursed expenses and in-kind payments that reduce personal living expenses. For example, military jobs provide money for basic housing allowance (BAH), cost of living allowances (COLA), basis allowance for subsistence (BAS), hostile fire and imminent danger pay (HFP and IDP)
- Benefits such as social security, unemployment compensation, disability benefits and workers compensation
- Recurring income of any other nature
- Arranging for a court ordered vocational evaluation. This type of evaluation considers an individual’s education, work history, intelligence and geographic residence to determine an income that the court can use for an alimony calculation, even if not actually earned, when a spouse is unemployed or under-employed. The testing has internal validity that will flag if a person is not honest that can be brought to the court’s attention.
- Conducting a business analysis to determine an accurate income. Although determining an income for a W-2 employee is often quite simple, determining an income of a business owner can be more complex. In Florida, there is clear case law that just because the IRS accepted a corporate or individual tax return does not mean that the figures must be accepted by a judge in a divorce case. A tax return can be combed through to determine “add-backs,” which are expenses or other deductions that are added back to the net income to provide a more accurate picture of a payor spouses actual income. In addition, some payor spouses hide their income by retaining it in the business. Unless, maintaining monies in a corporate account is needed for legitimate business purposes, funds can be added back to a payor spouses net income for alimony calculations.
- Determining cash when lack of a paper trial is the paper trial. In contested divorce cases in Florida, spouses must complete and file a financial affidavit listing their monthly expenses. Now consider that everyone must eat. If there is not one charge on a debit or credit card for a grocery store or restaurant, then the Court can impute the income of the food expense listed on the financial affidavit to the payor spouses net income as it is clearly being paid. The same concept can be used for any other expense such as a gas, a car payment, mortgage, and utilities. A careful line by line analysis and accounting can uncover hidden monies and then add all of this found monies back to the payor’s income.
In order to assist clients in tracking down income, some clients utilize the services of a forensic accountant. Attorney Rebekah Brown-Wiseman works closely with multiple forensic accountants to provide clients with a selection. For convenience we offer team work to get you results, we are proud to announce that we have a seasoned forensic accountant, Alfred Zeiler on the premises at least twice a week to conveniently assist with our client’s financial matters as needed. For more information on Mr. Zeiler, please see his website at https://floridaforensicaccounting.net/.
Call Attorney Rebekah Brown-Wiseman at 954-563-1331 (Ana use the tracking phone number you set up) or go to https://calendly.com/broward/familylaw/consultation to schedule a free consultation. Let us protect you and set you up for a brighter future.