Divorce – the Happy, Healthy and Wealthy Alternative

Mitigate your losses

Some things cannot be resolved or pushed under the rug.  When faced with the inevitable break up of a relationship don’t bicker over small potatoes.  The cost of the dispute could disrupt your financial future worse than the great depression.  Mitigate your losses rather than hope for a financial recovery.  To achieve financial success find strategies that will create future income streams.  You cannot get back or change what you had that is now gone.  Accept it and focus your energy and time on tactical planning.  This is the effective and beneficial use of your time.  You need to get a tax perspective of your new life.

When it’s over it’s over

Take a look at the marital home.  If there are no minor children living in the home sell or rent for the tax benefits.  Depending on the value a sell may create a loss and if it was used as an investment property the benefits can be immediate and carried forward.  If the home has equity, sell it take your share and contact your tax consult to offset the gain.  Retirement plans should be analyzed with consideration given to cost of living adjustments, outstanding loans, tax penalties for early withdrawal, possible buyout options and ultimate agreement on a fair share.  This can get sticky, but when you start to feel like you’re being cheated just remember: when it’s over it’s over and the sooner you make the decision you are one step closer to financial freedom and restful nights.  You may also want to consider the tens of thousands of dollars you are keeping by making swift financially responsible maneuvers.  Either way, it’s over and you may choose the long drawn out expensive door or the less costly simplified get more by taking less door.  Bear in mind, there is a tax solution to every financial problem.

Leave the house, write-off the tab and many more tips to a financially lucrative way to say thanks for the good times and let’s move onward with our assets and checkbook intact.  Get rid of all joint debts (or as much as you can) by selling assets.  Seek to start fresh with a clean slate and as little commingling as possible.  It may make since to liquidate brokerage accounts look for those with the most losses first to create shared capital losses and offset other investment gains.  Health expenses may be split or given to one party over the other as a bargaining tool to generate more losses on tax returns.  There is room for negotiation and how you prepare will affect the bottom line in divorce.  If you are looking for a tax consultant that will help you find the most financially lucrative, time and tax saving road to divorce finalization, contact us and mention this blog for a FREE one hour consult for your happy, healthy and wealthy divorce alternative.

Quick Tips:

When married own your own life insurance, long term care and other policies.  When divorcing don’t bother with separation and buyouts, you each walk with your own insurance policy come what may.  Just remember to change your beneficiary designation.  This is after all an independent contract and no divorce decree will supersede a binding insurance contract.

Revise Estate Planning documents immediately after finalizing divorce.  Create a separate property trust for divided assets and change beneficiaries, trustees and executors as needed.

Prenuptial Agreement = Peacemaker