The Role of Forensic Accountants in High-Asset Divorce Cases
Couples with significant wealth often require a team of professionals to identify and account for marital assets, striving for equitable distribution in a Colorado divorce. Our Colorado high-asset divorce attorneys can work closely with forensic accountants to protect your financial future. Working with a forensic accountant and an experienced attorney can save you time and safeguard your assets using financial analysis tools.
What Does a Forensic Accountant Do?
Forensic accountants are specialists utilizing auditing, accounting, and investigative practices to analyze financial records for legal proceedings. In a Colorado divorce, a forensic accountant may perform the following duties:
- Identify various streams of income, particularly hidden or undisclosed revenues
- Trace assets and complex transactions
- Provide fair business valuations
- Uncover hidden assets
- Identify financial document discrepancies
- Identify benefits or perks that contribute to income
- Provide a lifestyle analysis
Forensic accountants gather information to paint a financial picture of a marriage’s assets. Their work strives to ensure the accounting of crucial income streams and assets through transparency. Their expert testimony provides credibility in determining spousal maintenance, child support, and asset division.
What Assets May a Forensic Accountant Review in a High-Asset Divorce Case?
Consider these assets when you meet with a divorce attorney in Broomfield, Colorado and a forensic accountant. Gather any documentation to assist with the asset analysis. Assets in a high-asset divorce can include:
- Real estate, including vacation and rental properties
- Personal bank accounts
- Cryptocurrency
- Businesses and partnerships
- Investment portfolios
- Retirement accounts
- Trusts and stock portfolios
- Transportation or recreational vehicles, including water and aircraft
- Offshore accounts and shell companies
- Art and Collectibles
A forensic accountant will also analyze a couple’s debts and expenditures. Their detailed analysis presents a couple’s financial portfolio in an objective manner that the courts can more easily interpret, and your Colorado divorce attorney will use in a property and financial agreement.
What Are Some Benefits of Working With Forensic Accountants in a Colorado Divorce?
A forensic accountant’s extensive reports can support persuasive legal arguments. Though adding more costs to a divorce, their work can reduce the time it takes to finalize a high-asset divorce, saving you on legal fees. Their contributions may also minimize the potential for future disputes.
A forensic accountant’s evaluation of marital assets provides an unbiased point of view that promotes fair settlements without the need for lengthy litigation. Financial transparency is more likely when a forensic accountant thoroughly investigates a couple’s economic life.
What Are the Risks of Not Using a Forensic Accountant in a Colorado High-Asset Divorce?
Failing to accurately identify marital property, assets, revenues, and financial red flags is a crucial risk to you and your ability to prepare for the future financially. Proving financial misconduct can be challenging or impossible without a forensic accountant’s assistance. Miscalculating support payments can occur when an extensive investigation and review of assets does not occur.
A forensic accountant can also discuss the tax implications that various settlements can create. Tax burdens are a vital consideration in the division of assets. A forensic accountant’s contributions to the high-asset divorce process in Colorado can reduce stress during a divorce and after, giving you financial peace of mind.
Discuss the advantages of working with a forensic accountant with the Colorado high-asset divorce attorney representing your case. Decades of experience provide insight into client needs. A team of professionals working for you can potentially change the outcome of a divorce and the division of assets in high-asset divorces in Colorado.