Do you know how marriage and/or divorce will affect your taxes and financial planning? There are many choices that need to be made and some of them will be made for you if you do not properly plan. Many areas of finance, personal-life questions, and some basic laws will be addressed. Please note that I am not an attorney, nor is anything here to be construed as legal advice; rather, mediation in a non-adversarial setting is the objective.

Prior to marriage or divorce, a sample tax return should be prepared to see just what happens, but very often this isn't done.

I would never discourage anyone from getting married; it is, as the saying goes, a wonderful institution if you want to be institutionalized. It is, however, in our experience that 90% of people getting divorced do so because they failed to address certain financial and family concerns prior to marriage. The goal of pre-marriage financial consulting is get both parties to discover where they differ and agree so that they can work on issues before they marry. There are many things to consider and our questionnaire will begin the process. Our service is designed to open communications on several financial fronts that people often overlook. While one person can come in for advice this approach seldom works, in fact if only one of you wishes to attend that might be the first issue you discuss before making an appointment. Marriage is a partnership and that means two make it work or two make it fail.

Divorce is always ugly. No matter how amicable things start out I have yet to see a true friendly divorce when there are any assets, debts or children involved. This program is designed to help you understand the divorce process, understand basic divorce law and understand the fact that if the parties will not agree the court will settle the issues based upon a formula. Allowing the courts and lawyers to decide your fate is always costly and foolish. The goal of this service is save emotional stress and legal costs. It is best if both parties can come in as this is good practice for state required mediation, in fact if both parties can agree to terms and give said terms to their lawyer’s it is possible mediation and wasted court time can be eliminated. Whether one or both parties comes in up to the client, however because most of the issues affect both parties and both parties will be required to meet at some point this is a great way for both people to have some facts given and options presented.

Some basics you need to accept:

• If you lived together prior to marriage that time does not count as married time. Maine does not recognize so called common law marriages nor does it recognize palimony.
• Maine law splits marital assets and debts 50-50. The chances of an uneven split are remote at best and generally speaking the fees paid to lawyers and courts exceed any true benefit.
• Alimony is available after 10 years of marriage for up to 50% of the marriage time. Alimony is not a guaranteed right in Maine.
• If married more then 10 years pensions and social security rights are protected under federal law. Receiving funds from pensions after divorce takes careful planning to avoid tax penalties.
• While debts are split, creditors are not subject to the divorce degree. This means even if your ex is ordered to pay 100% of a debt his or her failure to pay means the creditor will come after you.
• You may not declare bankruptcy on debts that have been addressed in a divorce degree. Thus you cannot escape the order to pay any debt that has been assigned to you via bankruptcy.
• Custody in Maine will, with only extreme exceptions, always be joint custody. The reasoning is that if both parents are involved in the decision process of the needs of the child(ren) the child(ren) will continue to have strong ties to both parents.
• Child support is mandatory. You may not forfeit your child’s right to support nor generally can you get out of support payments. At times giving up parental rights and obligations does excuse one from support payments. However, the courts will look at whether or not the residential parent can support the child without creating a burden on the state before granting such a request.
• Inherited property unless you created an encumbrance or so mingled with spouse is not marital property.

Once again I am not an attorney and unless the parties can totally agree on all aspects of the divorce settlement they should each hire their own attorney. I gladly prepare sample tax returns and do financial statements for your attorney.