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Recent Blog Posts
What Tax Issues Do I Need to Consider During My Michigan Divorce?
When getting a divorce in Michigan, you will need to consider multiple types of financial issues. As you work to address legal fees and other costs, determine whether you will pay or receive child support or spousal support, and create a new budget that will allow you to cover your ongoing expenses, you should also be sure to understand how your divorce will affect your taxes. Having a thorough understanding of this financial aspect can help you better prepare for the future.
Tax Implications After Legally Ending Your Marriage
Once your Michigan divorce is finalized, you may need to deal with a variety of tax issues, including:
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Filing status - While you and your spouse can continue to file taxes jointly while you are married, you will be required to file separate tax returns once you are divorced. If you were still legally married on December 31 of the previous year, you can file taxes jointly for that year. Since filing jointly may provide benefits for both of you, you may want to delay the finalization of your divorce until after the new year. If you do so, you should be sure your divorce settlement specifies how you will divide a tax refund or the obligations to pay any taxes owed.
Is Mediation the Right Choice for My Michigan Divorce?
If your relationship with your spouse has broken down, you may feel that ending your marriage is the best choice for you and your family. However, you may also be worried about a contentious, adversarial divorce and the effects that this process may have on you, your finances, and your children. Fortunately, you do not have to take this approach, and instead, you may wish to use methods such as mediation to reach a settlement that both you and your spouse can be satisfied with. If you are weighing your divorce options, you should be sure to understand how the mediation process will work to determine whether it is right for you.
Benefits of Divorce Mediation
Mediation will allow you and your spouse to work together to end your marriage without the need to resolve disputes in the courtroom. The two of you will meet together with a mediator, who will be a neutral advisor rather than a legal representative for either of you. The mediator will help you understand the issues that you will need to address while guiding you toward decisions that you can both agree on.
What Are My Options if I Cannot Make Child Support Payments?
2020 has been a hard year for everybody. Even if you or your loved ones have not become sick, the COVID-19 pandemic has likely affected your life in multiple ways. Because of business closures, reductions in working hours, or health concerns, many people have lost their jobs or have had to deal with issues that resulted in the loss of income. If you are struggling financially, you may find yourself unable to meet your child support obligations. If this is the case, you will want to determine how you can avoid legal issues that may affect your relationship with your children and your ongoing financial security.
Consequences for Non-Payment of Child Support
Once a child support order is issued as part of a divorce or family law case, you will be required to make all payments on time and in full. If you do not pay child support as ordered, a variety of enforcement actions could be taken against you. The amount owed may be collected by garnishing your wages or withholding other forms of income, including unemployment payments, workers’ compensation, or Social Security disability. Your future tax refunds could be intercepted, or liens could be placed on your property. Your non-payment will also be reported to credit agencies, causing your credit score to go down.
What Are the Requirements for Adopting a Foster Child in Michigan?
There are many reasons why a person or a couple may choose to adopt a child. Parents may be unable to have children biologically, or they may simply want to pursue other options for expanding their family. Adoption can also be a way to provide a loving home and supportive environment for a child who needs it. In the state of Michigan, there are thousands of children in the foster care system who are waiting to be adopted. Parents who are looking to adopt a child may want to ensure they meet all of the necessary requirements, and they can work with a family law attorney to address any legal issues that may arise.
Foster Child Adoption Requirements
In many cases, children who are in the foster care system are temporarily placed in the homes of foster parents, with the goal of reuniting them with their birth parent(s). However, there are some situations where parental rights are terminated, and these foster children will be looking for adoptive parents who will assume permanent legal guardianship and responsibility for them.
How to Recognize the Signs of Parental Alienation During Your Divorce
Getting through the divorce process can be difficult, even in the best of situations. Unfortunately, divorces have the potential to turn ugly, and disagreements between spouses can become contentious legal battles. This can be especially true when a couple has children, and parents can sometimes take extreme steps to try to gain an advantage in child custody disputes. Parental alienation, in which one parent tries to negatively influence his or her children’s attitudes toward the other, can be especially problematic. A divorcing parent should be sure to understand the signs that his or her former partner is taking these types of improper actions.
Recognizing Parental Alienation
In some cases, parental alienation may involve one parent having a negative attitude toward the other, and their children may pick up on these feelings and begin to mimic them. This type of behavior should be avoided, and a parent should try to make sure their children can maintain a good relationship with the other parent. However, in some cases, parental alienation can be more insidious or overt. A spouse may actively attempt to harm his or her children’s relationship with the other parent in hopes of influencing decisions about child custody by convincing children that they do not want to spend time with one parent.
Is Virtual Mediation a Good Solution in My Michigan Divorce?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many families have had to get used to new ways of doing things. Whether this means working remotely, helping children attend school virtually, staying home whenever possible, practicing social distancing, or meeting up with people online rather than in person, things have changed significantly in many people’s lives. In some cases, these changes may have caused relationships between married couples to deteriorate, leading them to consider divorce. However, the same factors that led to this situation may also make the divorce process more difficult. Concerns about infection may affect court proceedings, and reaching a resolution on divorce-related issues can be tricky when the parties and their attorneys are maintaining social distancing. Fortunately, virtual divorce mediation is one solution that can help spouses resolve their differences and complete their divorce during this uncertain time.
Signs Your Child May Be Having Trouble Coping with Your Divorce
No matter how smoothly you and your spouse feel your divorce may be panning out, it is only natural to experience some bumps in the road somewhere along the separation journey. Even the most civil, peaceful partings can stir up feelings of hurt, anger, disappointment, and resentment. This is especially true for the children in the family, who may understandably feel confused or threatened by the sudden changes in the household.
Studies show that children of all ages tend to struggle with changes in routine, and they typically do best emotionally and mentally when they know what to expect on a day-to-day basis. Young adults in particular struggle with the transition, but even younger children can experience significant anxiety when their parents’ marriage ends.
Recognizing When Your Child Needs Help
How Can Substance Abuse Affect Parental Rights in Michigan?
Regardless of opinions on the matter, the law in Michigan states that substance abuse issues are not enough, in and of themselves, to disqualify a parent from retaining the rights to their children. It generally takes a showing of substance abuse and demonstrable consequences stemming from the problem in order to bring up questions of terminating parental rights.
Parental Rights During a Divorce
As with any case where parental fitness is at issue, a Michigan court will determine the child’s future based on the consideration of a list of factors intended to pinpoint the best interests of the child. Parental fitness is only one of those factors, though it is an important one. If someone has a substance abuse issue but is seeking help with it, or if someone is mentally ill and in treatment, that is different in many respects from someone who denies the issue altogether.
Understanding Marital Asset and Debt Division in a Michigan Divorce
When a couple is getting divorced, property division is often the most contentious and time-consuming aspect of the process. It can feel insurmountable to have to divide every asset you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse have between you. However, there is one other thing that must be divided upon the occasion of divorce: the debt that both of you hold. Both must be divided equitably in Michigan.
Dividing Assets
There are several factors that a Michigan judge will consider when determining how assets are divided, but equity is the prevailing focus. Many people confuse equity and equality; equity is a legal term meaning fairness in all respects, while equality is more of a colloquial concept. A judge will weigh a list of factors and determine the fairness of the proposed distribution. Some of these factors include:
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Whether or not a spouse is already receiving or will receive spousal support
What You Should Know About Military Divorce
Serving in the military comes with obvious risks, but not everyone thinks about the risks their relationships may face. The unfortunate truth is that being an enlisted service member or an officer means your chances of getting divorced are much higher than those associated with a marriage between two civilians.
Factors that can lead to a ruined relationship include the extremely high stress of certain military jobs, being away for months at a time, and having to put your service before your family again and again. Service members who have experienced trauma while deployed or during training have an even higher divorce rate, with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, and an inability to assimilate back into civilian life being common contributors to divorce.
Military divorce is similar to civilian divorce in various ways and much different in others. An experienced military divorce attorney can assist you as a service member or a civilian in your divorce.
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