Tag Archive for: Post Divorce Financial Planning

Social Security and Divorce

This Saturday we will be presenting a Social Security benefit course for clients and other professionals we work with during dissolution proceedings such as attorneys, mental health professionals and accountants. Social Security benefits are an often misunderstood piece of the divorce financial planning picture because they are governed by federal laws, not the local laws of the state you reside in but a little planning can go a long way. Check out our past blog posts on Social Security benefits and Divorce here.

Divorce Financial Planning: Concentrated Stock Holdings During Divorce

financial planning, CDFA

Your Investments

We have many clients with significant wealth tied up in the stock of their employers. During Divorce Financial Planning it may become necessary to create liquidity to pay fees, facilitate an equalization payment or create diversification where there previously was none.

These stock holdings are through vehicles such as Employee Stock Purchase Plans, Stock Options and Restricted Stock. They may be vested, unvested or co-mingled, meaning they have different liquidity constraints. Each vehicle also has a different tax consequence at sale. Here is a quick review of some Divorce Financial Planning considerations to consider when seeking liquidity and diversification during during divorce proceedings.

Stock Holdings

For stock held outright we look at tax basis for guidance in our divorce financial planning. Shares with a low tax basis can be sold today to lock in tax rates and later repurchased if the client wishes to continue to hold the stock.

Restricted Stock

Restricted stock generally releases or distributes into a common brokerage account at vesting so it would be treated as normal stock holdings with divorce financial planning decisions based upon review of tax basis. The tax basis is based upon the stock price on the day of vesting and distribution.

Employee Stock Purchase Plans

Stock held in an Employee Stock Purchase plan has a complicated tax picture. The discount, typically 15%, given to the employee on the initial purchase price is taxed at ordinary income tax rates. The difference between the fair market value at purchase and the fair market value at sale is taxable at capital gains rates. ESPP assets often have low tax basis because employees buy and hold the stock  so this may be the first place to look for harvesting gains and resetting basis during your divorce financial planning.

Stock Options

Non-Qualified stock options carry a more complicated set of tax implications and divorce financial planning considerations. Options are taxed as ordinary income for the difference between the strike price and the price at exercise. Options can be exercised today in a same day exercise and sale transaction to lock in tax rates. If you wished to hold the stock you could still exercise the options and lock in the ordinary income tax rates for 2012 but you would have to come up with cash from another source to fund the option exercise. Stock options also become a complicated logistics issue post divorce as the non-employee spouse may not be able to hold the options. For this reason alone it is worth considering liquidation during your divorce financial planning.

Wellspring Divorce Advisors builds long term distribution schedules and detailed analysis of current versus future values including opportunity cost and present value of money to help clients decide how to manage concentrated stock positions during and immediately after divorce proceedings.

 

wellspring divorce advisors

Wellspring Divorce Advisors helps individuals and couples address the financial aspects of divorce in a civilized, equitable, and efficient manner by providing expert divorce financial planning and advice.

Contact us to find out how we can help you through this process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 Financial Negotiation Strategies for Divorce

“What are 5 things people who are somewhere in the divorce process should think about?”

  1. Avoid deciding financial issues piecemeal instead of understanding the big picture.
  2. Do not allow your former spouse to use financial data as a weapon against you. The cost of divorce proceedings can be directly correlated to the amount of time and effort it takes to level the information playing field “discovery”.
  3. Budget, Budget, Budget
  4. Do cost benefit and risk versus reward analysis with your CDFA and attorney
  5. Understand that not all lawyers are skilled in resolving disputes. They are always trained to create and escalate them. Dispute resolution is a whole different world.

3 Reasons You Need Financial Guidance During Divorce

httpss://vimeo.com/81148746

1. If you don’t have kids or they have grown up; the ONLY thing there is to argue about in a divorce is money.

2. The financial decisions made during your divorce will very likely be the biggest and most difficult you will ever make set amid the most emotionally chaotic time of your life.

3. The decisions you make today will affect your financial safety and security for the rest of your life.

 

 

Divorce and Taxes: How they can affect your financial future

taxes, divorce financial analyst

Taxes are guaranteed to be a complication of every divorce financial settlement. Misunderstanding the tax code, even worse completely ignoring it, can have devastating effects on your financial future.

The errors get more costly and more common when estates and incomes get larger and people start getting creative. Negotiating a creative and mutually beneficial divorce financial settlement can be complicated when you have significant assets and income. Make sure you and your attorney have the help of a financial expert skilled and experienced in navigating the tax codes of divorce. Here are some common errors.

Exemptions

Failure to consider the value of dependency exemptions and filing status for income taxes. High earners are often phased out of using dependency exemptions, failure to negotiate the use post divorce could waste tax dollars.

 

Child Support

Not understanding the difference between child support and spousal support for tax purposes. Spousal support is taxable to the recipient, tax deductible for the payer.

 

Spousal Support

Structuring future changes in spousal support in close proximity to an event or mile-stone related to your children. This is also known as the Child Contingency rule and could cause tax deductible spousal support payments to be re-classified as non-deductible child support.

 

Attorney Fees

Failure to deduct attorney fees related to spousal support dispute as a miscellaneous itemized deduction. Yes your attorney fees are deductible to the extent they were incurred in the process of seeking tax advice or spousal support. You will need to ask your lawyer for an itemized break out of the litgiation costs. This can be incredibly valuable in protracted, expensive litigation.

 

IRS

Running afoul of Section 1041 of the internal revenue code. Section 1041 is the IRS code that allows spouses, married or divorcing, to transfer assets to one another without tax consequence. There are however rules to follow like how ling you have to complete a transaction.

 

Incorrect Assumptions

Assuming your CPA understands the tax code related to divorce. They can certainly look things up but it is a bad idea to assume your CPA understands the tax intricacies of divorce. The last time I spoke to a California Society of Certified Public Accountants group there were 200+ CPA’s in the room and 200+ questions after the presentation.

 

 

wellspring divorce advisors

Wellspring Divorce Advisors helps individuals and couples address the financial aspects of divorce in a civilized, equitable, and efficient manner by providing expert divorce financial planning and advice.

Contact us to find out how we can help you through this process.