I'm working on a case where the wife believes that her huband has a side account or accounts and is not isclosing it during the divorce proceedings. Its my job to try and help the attorneys discover all marital assets. Can the forum please provide me with suggestions on how to discovery bank accounts owned by the husband?

I have already looked at the tax return but we are not sure the return is correct. The husband is self employed and we know that he is not reporting all income.

Sound like you have multiple issues: location of assets, accuracy of tax returns, valuation of the self employed assets.

You can negotiate to obtain IRS transcripts of records to verify the accuracy of the tax returns and also locate banks that the husband may have.

FYI: non-interest bank accounts and off-shore bank accounts do not report to the IRS. If you suspect other accounts, then you can threaten perjury for false statements.

Another issue to consider is that the husband put assets in the names of others.

I'm sure the attorney on the case will depose the husband under oath.

Did husband and wife file joint returns?

Tax returns are a great place to start. Where he gets his mail is a second place, even if the non-interest bearing accounts are not on a return a bank statement is always generated, so go through the mail for bank names and you can contact banks from there. Second, in divorce cases it is possible to imput income to a person. This is generally done to someone that shows a certain amount of income but lives beyond it and does not have a great deal of debt. You need to be able to substantiate a life style, that can allow a court to imput income to a person. Requires a bit of investigation and factual arguments, but happens more often than you think. Especially when children are inovlved. See what kinds of cars he drives, where he eats, how many trips he takes, montly rent and etc..

Steve and Tim46, thanks for your help. Tracking cash is difficult. I'm assuming he had money in a non-interest bearing account. The wife thinks the money is now overseas. So its impossible to figure it out. All he has to do is lie under oath and noone can prove otherwise; and my client gets screwed!.

Again, thanks for your help.

I am working on a divorce where the husband had business entities listed in his siblings names. If we can show that the husband ran the businesses and operated the day to day activities then we are hoping to have the value of those businesses attributed to him. We can prove that the sibling had no involvement with the companies.

Anyone have any experience with this?

There was no way that we were gonna be able to uncover all the misfeasance of the wealthy spouse so the parties settled. The truth is if you cover up your assets the parties will run out of money before the can prove ownership or value. Its unfortunate but thats the truth.