Recent Blog Posts in September 2009

In your Florida divorce, one spouse may receive alimony or child support from the other.  When that happens, you need to be aware of the tax consequences.  Wouldn’t it be great if we all got to take home all of the money we earn at work?  Of course we can’t because income tax is taken out.

While there are no income taxes to be paid for receipt of child support, there are income taxes to be paid on alimony.

There are many technical rules involved (after all, we are talking about the Internal Revenue Code), but basically you can count on treating monthly payments of alimony as taxable income to the receiving spouse and tax deductible to the paying spouse.  That makes a huge difference in the amount of money involved.  If you are in the twenty percent tax bracket, $1,000 per month becomes $800.  If you were planning your future based on the entire $1,000, you are in for a surprise.

It is very important to get the advice of an expert Florida divorce lawyer when there is alimony involved.

Bottom line:  Ask your Tampa divorce lawyer about the tax consequences of paying or receiving alimony.

© Copyright 2009 by Stann Givens

Benjamin Franklin said, “The only two sure things are death and taxes.”  When you are going through a divorce in Florida, you must remember that there are tax consequences to certain parts of it.

Suppose that you bought some rental property with your spouse a few years back and it looks as if you are going to get the property as part of a settlement proposal from your spouse’s expert Florida divorce lawyer.  Of course you will consider the amount of mortgage debt that is on the property when you analyze what the property is really worth to you, but you need to be aware of a hidden debt.  The amount by which the property has increased in value since its purchase will be subject to capital gains tax (currently 15%).  There will be no tax due at the time of the divorce, but when you later sell the property you will have to pay that tax.

For that reason, you may not wish to put that property in your column on the property division balance sheet.  If your spouse is not willing to factor that debt into the equation, then your expert Tampa divorce lawyer may suggest that your spouse get that property and you get something else that has no future tax burden.

Bottom line:  Your Florida divorce lawyer can help you look at all of the tax factors involved in the property division aspect of your divorce.

© Copyright 2009 by Stann Givens

Florida divorce lawyers typically charge by the hour for what they do.  In order to save their clients money, they make use of paralegals to perform some tasks.

A paralegal is someone who has gone to school to receive training in assisting lawyers with legal research, drafting of court documents and preparing a case for presentation to the court.  Obviously, paralegals cannot give legal advice and must work under the direction of a lawyer.

One way that expert Tampa divorce lawyers use paralegals is to have them perform the initial work in preparing a financial affidavit for use in a dissolution of marriage case.  They take the account statements and other documents provided by the client and place the information in the proper locations on the financial affidavit.  By doing this, the lawyer need only review the work for accuracy and spend far less time on the task than otherwise would be spent.  Since the hourly rates of paralegals is far less than those of lawyers, the savings can be significant.

Paralegals also are very effective in making initial drafts of court documents and correspondence so that there is money saved in those tasks as well.

Bottom line:  Use of paralegals by Florida divorce lawyers can save substantial money in your divorce.

© Copyright 2009 by Stann Givens

Suppose your spouse is a citizen of a foreign country and your marriage is not going well.  Your child has a US passport and you fear that your spouse will sneak out of the country with the child.  Your Florida child custody lawyer can advise you how to protect yourself from potentially never seeing your child again.

The first step would be to express your concern in a document filed with the court without notice to your spouse asking for an order temporarily giving you sole custody of the child.  The court can sign the order and then set a hearing where your spouse can express the opposing position.

After the court makes the order effective through the remainder of the case, your expert Tampa divorce lawyer can then follow procedures of the U.S. Department of State to make sure that your spouse cannot obtain a new passport for the child, even by saying that the original was merely lost.

Bottom line:  There are steps you can take to avoid the unspeakable horror of never seeing your child again.

© Copyright 2009 by Stann Givens

There is nothing more important than the welfare of your children.  When you are headed for a breakup of your relationship with the children’s other parent, whether it be a divorce or a paternity situation, there are some steps you can take to protect your children.  Among these steps is the involvement of a mental health professional.

The first involvement could be as a couples therapist to see if you can save the relationship.  If that does not work, or if you are just not interested in that, you could involve a mental health expert in counseling your children to help them understand that they are not at fault in the breakup and that they are going to be ok.

If the parenting arrangement for the children becomes a contested matter, your expert Tampa divorce lawyer can successfully use a mental health professional as a witness in the trial.  No matter how many friends and relatives you present to the judge to tell what a good parent you are, the impact on the judge’s decision will not be as effective as presenting a mental health expert to tie the testimony together.

The mental health expert can speak with your witnesses or hear from you a summary of what they are going to say.  The expert can also speak with your children and anyone who has counseled the children.  Depending on the age of the children, there can be psychological testing of the children that can be evaluated by the expert.  In certain circumstances, there can be psychological testing of the parents that can be similarly evaluated.  The expert can tie all of this together and, with authority, paint the picture for the judge as to why your parenting plan should be adopted for the children.

Even in cases where there is more collaboration between the separating parents, a mental health expert can be used as a parenting coordinator to assist the couple in working out a schedule that is best for the children.

Bottom line:  Talk to your Florida divorce lawyer about how a mental health expert can be used to help you accomplish what is in the best interest of your children.

© Copyright 2009 by Stann Givens

For many years, the only way to get your marriage dissolved was to have both spouses hire expert Florida divorce lawyers and battle it out tooth and nail.  In these more modern times, things have gotten a lot more creative and a lot more helpful to those going through the agonizing breakup of a relationship.  There are several FLORIDA DIVORCE ALTERNATIVES.

An easy, fast and cheap divorce comes from the notion of having a FLORIDA UNCONTESTED DIVORCE.  You don’t even need to involve two lawyers.  One of you can go to a lawyers office and get advice, then work out the practical details with your spouse and then have the lawyer put it all into “legalese” and make sure that the paperwork is all processed correctly.

FLORIDA COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE is another option.  In collaborative divorce, you both agree in the beginning that you will not go to trial, but will work it all out amicably.  You guarantee that this will occur by agreeing to fire the lawyers involved in your negotiations if they are unsuccessful in bringing you to an agreement.

The most common way of ending the uncomfortable divorce process these days is to engage in a FLORIDA MEDIATION.  This is where the parties and their lawyers meet with a third and independent Florida divorce lawyer who pushes both sides toward settlement of their differences.

Another Florida divorce alternative is the FLORIDA PRO SE divorce.  These means that the parties represent themselves and do not hire lawyers.  We often meet with a spouse who is handling the divorce without a lawyer, but wishes to get advice on the law, strategy and procedure before reaching a final agreement with the other spouse.  After all, it is very difficult for someone inexperienced in the law of divorce to competently handle all of the issues without some help.

Bottom line:  There are many FLORIDA DIVORCE ALTERNATIVES.  Check with a Florida divorce lawyer to see which option is best suited to your situation.

© Copyright 2009 by Stann Givens