On Friday, I blogged on the judicial estoppel aspect of the Romano case decided last week by the Appellate Division. While that was the major issue in that case, there was another part of the case that jumped out at me, when I read this line related to the court’s valuation of the husband’s business and calculation:

John also maintains that Judge Becker should not have accepted Dana’s expert testimony with regard to the value of his business and the income it generates. John did not provide sufficient reliable information to allow Dana’s expert to use valuation techniques based on tax reporting, so the expert was forced to consider the family expenses as a means to gauge the income generated by the business.

This scenario is not uncommon in divorce matters where a sole proprietor provides neither complete business records nor reliable Internal Revenue Service filings. We defer to Judge Becker’s fact-findings concerning the value of the business and its revenue.  (Emphasis added).

Unfortunately, when dealing in cases with small (and some times not so small) businesses, this is a common occurrence.  Often, it becomes a game of "tell me how much you can find and I tell you how much I have."   In this case, the non-owner has the laboring oar to try to reconstruct the exact income.Continue Reading Court Says Incomplete Records and Inaccurate Tax Filings from the Self Employed Common in Divorce