Forensic Accountants Know Money & Docs Better Than Divorce Lawyers
The Forensic Accounting Deskbook by Miles Mason, Sr. JD, CPA, published by the ABA Family Law Section
How can I find out if my husband or wife has a secret bank account? How can a forensic accountant help during a divorce? Forensic accountants know money and documents better than divorce lawyers.
For a much more detailed discussion, see The Forensic Accounting Deskbook: A Practical Guide to Financial Investigation and Analysis for Family Lawyers, Second Edition, authored by Miles Mason, Sr. and published by the ABA Family Law Section. This updated edition of one the ABA’s most popular resources explains the practice of forensic accounting and business valuation and how to apply it in family law cases. It provides a practice-focused introduction to the core financial concepts in divorce, such as asset identification, classification, and valuation, income determination, expenses, and more.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Tracy Coenen: Can you tell us about divorce and family law services and some of the key terms that an accountant might run into while performing those services?
Miles Mason: Yes. Family law is a general term describing divorce, child support, alimony, adoption, a lot of different things within that context. But primarily what we’re talking about is divorce, and divorce is separating the legal relationship between a husband and wife. But within a divorce, in a broader context, we’re usually going to be talking about property division, identifying, classifying, and valuing marital property, and dividing marital property and debt. We’re also talking about child custody, child support, alimony, court costs, attorney’s fees. All these things go into the mix, but primarily a forensic account is going to be helping us with identifying, classifying, and valuing marital property. But within classification, when we say classification what we’re talking about is marital versus non-marital property and in a community property state, community property versus non-community property. And then forensic accountants also help with income determination for child support and alimony purposes. And can provide general litigation support including reviewing documents and giving the lawyer specific advice about the information that’s learned and the documents.
Tracy Coenen: Can you tell us a little bit about some of the services that an accountant can provide as an expert witness in divorce and why they’re so important?
Miles Mason: Yes. An accountant obviously has a specialized knowledge, and has hands on experience with the documents. They know how a tax return was built. They know how financial statements are built. They know what a general ledger is. I mean, most of the people in my area, such as lawyers, courtroom, they may have a general ledger, but they’ve never seen one.
Thank you to Tracy Coenen, CPA, CFF for inviting me to join her in this video series. Tracy is a nationally recognized forensic accountant practicing in Milwaukee and Chicago.
