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What Divorced Couples Should Know About Taxes
If you are in the process of divorce, or are contemplating divorce, there are important tax considerations that must be taken into account. Specific parts of the tax code speak directly to divorce; thus, divorcing couples must consider the tax consequences with regard to the decisions being made.
Timing for Filing Status
Whether or not you are eligible to file jointly depends on your marital status. The IRS uses your official marital status as of December 31. Therefore, if your divorce is not finalized by the end of the year, you can file jointly. You may want to keep this in mind when you consider the timing of your divorce.
Dependents
If there are children from the marriage, the question of who will claim which child is typically something that is decided during divorce proceedings. To begin, you should first discuss this with your attorney before the issue arises. It may make sense for one person to claim all dependents and give up something else. Or, one parent can claim some of the children and the other parent can claim the rest.
Will My Child be Appointed an Attorney?
There are several different types of legal cases that involve children, whether as a party to a lawsuit, a defendant, or an interested party. Furthermore, there are certain situations where the court will appoint an attorney to represent a minor (someone under the age of 18). In cases such as this, you may want to contact your own skilled child representation attorney for assistance.
Juvenile Court
Young people who are charged with a crime, are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and/or delinquent may be diverted into juvenile court. Minors involved in juvenile court have many of the same rights that adults have in criminal court. Minors in both juvenile and criminal court have the right to an attorney. Additionally, if a young person or his or her family cannot afford an attorney, the court will appoint one for free if necessary.
Family Court
Relocation with Children in Illinois
There are several reasons why an individual may want to move, whether locally or further away—a change in employment, family members who need care-taking, or cheaper costs of living. However, if you live in Illinois and are subject to a parenting plan, meaning that you are separated or divorced from the other parent, there are specific rules regarding when and where you can relocate.
Former Illinois Parental Relocation Law
In the past, the law required parents to obtain court approval to move with their children only if they were moving outside of Illinois. Indeed, parents could move with the child a few miles or across the state without getting the court’s approval. However, if a parent moved across state lines, even if it was just a few miles, they would need to get court approval. Like with most areas of family law, the court used the standard of the “best interests of the child” to decide whether to approve or disapprove the proposed move.
Making Sure You Get Your Holiday Time with Your Kids
It is almost the holiday season, which can mean fun. However, holidays can also be stressful. Parents that do not live together may have added stress with regard to sharing parenting time and determining who will have the children when. Moreover, it can be frustrating when you plan to have parenting time but the other parent interferes with that time.
If you have a valid parenting plan in place, it should lay out who has parenting time with your children on which holidays. Yet sometimes one parent may refuse to allow the other parent the parenting time to which he or she is entitled. If this happens, you should contact pre and post-judgment court order enforcement attorneys to help you enforce the legal agreement that you made.
Allocation of Parenting Time
If you were married when you had kids and then divorced, in order for the judge to approve the divorce, there should have been an agreed upon parenting plan—though the plan may have been called a custody agreement at the time. The agreement should lay out exactly who has the children on which holidays and for how long.
Who Will the Children Live with After the Divorce?
One of the biggest concerns that couples with children have during a divorce is with whom the children will live. There are many factors that go into decisions about where the children will live. Parents who want the child to live with them will be best served by working with a skilled family law attorney to help make their case in court.
The Best Interest of the Child
The court makes its decisions based on the best interests of the child. The factors that go into best interests of the child are laid out in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. A number of factors that the court will examine include (depending on age) the child’s wishes, the needs of the child and parents, how the child will adjust to his or her school or community, whether the parents can get along, and if there has been any abuse in the family.
The court’s main concern is the children’s well-being, and the court will want the children to live with the parent who will not only give the child the best environment, but who will also preserve the child’s relationship with the other parent (barring abuse or other unsafe situations).
Why Do Couples Sign Postnuptial Agreements?
While prenuptial agreements are commonly discussed in popular culture, it is less common to hear about postnuptial agreements. Postnuptial agreements cover similar things to prenuptial agreements, but they are entered into after the marriage has already been created. It may seem strange for couples to enter into these (usually) binding agreements after they have already been married for a period of time, but there are many valid reasons why a couple may want to draw up and sign a postnuptial agreement.
If you are thinking about a postnuptial agreement it is crucial that you talk to a knowledgeable prenuptial and postnuptial agreement attorney to make sure that the agreement you devise will be upheld by the court.
Marital Wrongdoing
One common reason for a postnuptial agreement is for one spouse to prove to the other that he or she is committed to working on the marriage. Illinois does not take fault into account when calculating spousal support and maintenance, so forgiving the infidelity will have no effect on the outcome without a postnuptial agreement. However, a spouse who has engaged in wrongdoing, such as adultery, can prove that he or she is committed to the marriage by drawing up a postnuptial agreement with terms favorable to the other spouse.
Court Ordered Mediation in Illinois
There are many issues that must be figured out during a divorce, including property division, parenting time, and parental decision making responsibility. Courts prefer situations in which couples are able to work out these issues themselves instead of going through the lengthy and labor intensive litigation process.
In Illinois, if a divorcing couple does not already have an agreement about issues related to parenting when they come to court, in many cases the court will order the couple to attempt to engage in mediation.
To save yourself from the headaches (and costs) of going to court in order to be sent to mediation, you may want to start by talking to a knowledgeable mediation attorney before the court gets involved.
Mediation Basics
Mediation is a process where the couple tries to reach agreements about important issues with a skilled third-party neutral mediator leading the process. In successful mediation, the divorcing couple will be able to find an arrangement that accommodates both parties. Furthermore, with mediation, the couple can come up with creative solutions that work for them collectively.
Child Support Withholding Violations
When it comes to child support, sometimes the court imposes an obligation on someone other than the parent who is paying child support. This often comes into play when child support is paid directly from the employer of the person paying child support to the parent who is receiving support. However, sometimes there are issues with the employer’s withholding of this income. Income withholding violations are serious matters that can result in a child not getting his or her needs met.
Withholding
The state of Illinois puts a high priority on making sure that the children in the state are supported and have their needs met. As part of this, in order to make sure that court ordered child support is paid timely and in full, the default payment arrangement for child support in Illinois is through income withholding.
Income withholding is a process whereby an employer or other income provider automatically withholds money from the payor’s pay or benefit check and pays it to the other parent directly. Parents can agree for child support to be paid from one parent to the other parent without using income withholding, though this can be a mistake if there are ever any issues about whether payments were made. Generally, income withholding is more straightforward and can eliminate some conflict.
Domestic Violence in Illinois
Criminal Law
Illinois criminal law defines domestic battery as knowingly causing bodily harm or making insulting or provoking physical contact to a household or family member. For a first offense, domestic battery is generally a class A misdemeanor. However, domestic battery is a class four felony if the person who committed the crime has a record of domestic violence or one of many other violence-related charges. If the battery is in the presence of a child, there can be increased penalties. In addition to the other penalties, an Illinois a domestic violence conviction may make someone ineligible to carry or own firearms.
Illinois Domestic Violence Act of 1986
The Illinois Domestic Violence Act of 1986 (IDVA) was passed to officially recognize domestic violence as a problem and to give direction to agencies that are involved with domestic violence.
Who Will Get the Pet in Our Divorce?
Those of us with pets often feel like they are part of the family. Therefore, in the event of a divorce, deciding who gets to keep the pet can be a huge conflict. There are several different factors that affect a court’s decision regarding pet custody. Generally, the rule is that a pet is personal property like any other property. However, sometimes the court is willing to see a pet as unique.
Pet Custody Agreement
Couples can create an agreement that lays out what would happen to a pet in the event of a divorce. The court does not necessarily have to uphold the agreement, but it may help the couple come to their own agreement about the pet. Like most other parts of property division during a divorce, a court will almost always approve an arrangement to which the couple agrees.
Marital or Separate Property?
With any property involved in a divorce, the court will first decide whether the property is marital property, and is thus subject to division, or whether it is the separate property of one of the couples. The court is more likely to see a pet as one person’s separate property if he or she owned the pet before the marriage. However, if the pet was bought or rescued by the couple during the marriage, then the court may look to other factors to determine who gets the pet if the couple cannot agree.
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