Get Ready To Track Down Your Ex-Spouse’s Important Financial Documents in Your Separation or Divorce in Ontario!

Get Ready To Track Down Your Ex-Spouse’s Important Financial Documents in Your Separation or Divorce in Ontario!

If you’ve tried to figure out whether your spouse is concealing money, investments or assets, you are probably scratching your head on getting important answers to that question.

Hi, my name is Thomas O’Malley.  I’m an experienced family lawyer in Durham Region and the GTA.

Hidden income usually shows up as income that is hidden from the CRA, but it usually is not completely hidden. 

A good businessperson wants to know how their business is doing in order to improve any deficiency.  To understand how the business is really doing, one needs real numbers. 

Therefore, while false numbers are given to the accountant so that the income is hidden from the tax people, the real numbers are used by the owner, sometimes with the help of a different financial person, to analyze the progress of their business. 

As such, real numbers usually exist somewhere.

Getting those real numbers during a separation or divorce is very often very difficult.  The business owner’s spouse may issue a request for documents from the business owner spouse and the business owner spouse will probably deny that any secret documents exist.

What often occurs is that as a marriage or relationship starts to fail, the spouse of the business owner secretly collects and copies business documents in case they are needed later.  In many situations, this spouse does indeed produce secret documents that were somehow obtained.

Ideally, secret documents will apply to a year in which the tax returns have already been filed, making it easier to demonstrate that there has been unreported income and that the credibility of the business owner spouse is suspect now. 

An added benefit is that by studying the documents, one can see how the income was hidden-if sales were artificially lowered, if costs were artificially increased, or if certain types of expenses were altogether fake. 

By comparing the actual information with what was reported on the tax returns, one can see which numbers remained the same and which numbers changed significantly.  Often, many expenses remain the same and only the gross sales change.

If the business owner has reported a falsified lower income to the court, they have knowingly lied to the court, and the court will most likely consider all of his other allegations false as well.

Of course, some business owners use different techniques to hide their income-following one strategy during the marriage and another after divorce.  Therefore, checking all the ratios to see if anything different seems to be happening in the current year is a good idea.

One important ratio is that of salaries to gross sales since a ratio of decreasing sales and increasing employee wages is especially suspicious and could indicate that fake employees are now on the payroll or that both sales and costs of sales are now being falsely reduced.

Discuss this issue of your spouse possibly hiding money, investments or assets thoroughly with your family lawyer.  It could make a big difference in your family law case.

If you have any questions about your separation, divorce or family law case and you would like our help, there’s a few ways to contact our office.  

You can leave a message on my Facebook law office page, visit my website at www.canadiandivorcelegaladvice.com, or call me directly at 905-434-8837.  We would be happy to speak to you.

Oh, by the way, did you know you can protect your family law rights and get essential information on settling your family law issues with your former spouse with the daily indispensable family law advice and tips at my FREE Facebook group? 

Click here to find out more: Durham Region Separation and Divorce Legal Support Group  

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