It can be hard for Chicago couples to manage their finances and plan for the future during a divorce. In addition to protecting your finances, you want to ensure you have a good understanding of what you may be entitled to.
Some people may be tempted to lie about their income or assets during the divorce proceedings to pay less to their ex. Unfortunately, hiding money is all too common – and easier than you think.
How could you hide money
There are several ways to hide money from the court when going through divorce. Most people won’t get away with verbally lying about their income.
Instead, they’d have to either deflate their income or postpone it until after the divorce. This usually requires the help of their boss, so it’s one of the harder ways to lie about your income. Instead, a person looking to hide their income might:
- Transfer property into a friend or family member’s name
- Hand physical valuables – like jewelry or art – to someone else for safekeeping until after the divorce
- Depositing and withdrawing funds from a child’s savings account or other family relative’s account
- Hiding money offshore
Finding out about income
There are several ways that you might be able to find out about your ex hiding income. Noticing missing bank statements on joint accounts or seeing a steep drop in their salary from the last time you checked are the biggest signs.
Some spouses might overpay the IRS or value their business as worth less while going through a divorce. Ideally, you’ll want to find out before the divorce is over about any hidden income.
Lying about their income or assets during divorce is illegal though. If you find out after the divorce is finalized, you may still be able to take your ex to court again.
