If you’re a family law attorney practicing in Wisconsin, you might want to consider attending a State Bar of Wisconsin CLE seminar being presented by Gregg Herman and Al Dassow on January 11, 2013. They’re talking about Tax and Tax Fraud Issues in Family Law.
Gregg Herman has been practicing family law since I was a little kid (he’s going to hate me for saying that), and I’m fortunate to run into him in my office building from time to time. He has blogs on family law issues, and I urge you to take a peek at his blog and put it into your RSS reader so you can keep up with it. He has been blogging faithfully for the better part of a year (no small feat!) and I am looking forward to reading more.
Back to the CLE session, which is going to be available live and replayed three times via webcast… I run into plenty of income tax issue in my forensic accounting practice, commonly with spouses refusing to turn over income tax returns, especially for business interests. On the agenda for the CLE session are:
- Can the court order a party to sign a joint income tax return?
- Can a lawyer agree that a client not file a Community Property return even if none of the “opt out” provisions are applicable?
- Can a lawyer file a financial disclosure statement for a client if it is obvious that the client is not reporting all of his or her income?
- What innocent spouse relief is available for a client?
- Can a client plead the 5th amendment?
I just read your article and I had a forensic account do an evaluation of our business for a divorce. The business grossed $105 million in 2015 . The evaluation was done for the year 2015. I discovered after signing the MSA in court in July of 2016 that key documents are very important to access the true value of a business and were not used in my accountants evaluation. Our personal and corporate 2015 tax returns, 2015 audited financial statements and my now ex’s 2015 personal financial statements. How could a forensic/fraud examiner CPA with such high credentials violate such important rules and ethic codes of standard to a client? I paid this accountant almost 1/2 a million dollars and I am devistated that I put my faith and trust in him to protect my financial future for me and my minor daughter. Are there any boards besides the accountancy board that would consider this a violation of credentials?