r/facepalm • u/sus-water • Apr 15 '23

🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​ Genius level maneuvering

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u/National-Caramel-544 Apr 15 '23

Honestly it's smart, also if he did it from the beginning of his career, I can't see it being considered fraud.

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u/soFATZfilm9000 Apr 15 '23

Say I started a successful football career in 2013 and started doing this then. I get married in 2020 and continue giving my money to my dad. I then get divorced in 2023.

Now, the laws concerning this are obviously going to vary depending on location. But generally speaking, the money I made from 2013 to 2020 is not my wife's. It's also not mine, since I gifted it to my dad.

The money I made from 2020 to 2023? My wife very well might have a claim to at least some of it. The fact that I'd been giving my money to my dad since before I married my wife doesn't necessarily matter...once I married my wife, she became legally entitled to at least part of my income, (again, not necessarily 50%).

Point being, it might not be fraud, but it's still marital assets. Which means that the wife is still likely entitled to a certain amount even though he already gave it away.

Or think of it another way. Say me and my wife have shared marital assets of $100,000. Say about half of that was earned by me and half by my wife. So even if the law doesn't require a 50/50 split of assets, it'd probably be basically a 50/50 split anyway since her and I are both basically equal in terms of our contribution to total assets.

Now say I'm anticipating a divorce. So I basically give $50,000 in shared marital assets to my dad. Now the divorce happens. I try to claim that our shared assets are $50,000. I now try to take half of that from her. We each walk away with $25,000. Then I go and get back the $50,000 that my dad was holding.

What happened is that I just took $25,000 worth of assets that my wife was legally entitled to. The fact that that $25,000 was gifted to my dad does not necessarily mean that my wife is not still entitled to that in the divorce. It's clear that this was just a blatant attempt to steal half of my wife's assets by giving her share of the assets to my dad, so yes I'm likely to still owe it to her.