Some family law attorneys are reluctant to retain forensic accountants in their cases. Money may be a factor, but sometimes the need for an outside expert is not clear. While law firms may have paralegals or attorneys on staff who […]

Tracy Coenen explains exactly what a Ponzi scheme is: an investment scheme in which the promoter takes money from “investors” and promises to invest it. There is little to no real investment, and when it comes time to pay “returns” […]

Cases with high volumes of bank data, such as money laundering, high net worth divorce, securities fraud, Ponzi schemes, tax fraud, and white collar crime, present special challenges for forensic accountants. High volumes of financial data can be overwhelming. How […]

Hidden assets can impact both the property division and the award of support payments. Assets hidden by one spouse deprive the other spouse of a share of them. If the hidden assets include income-producing assets such as a business venture […]

It is not unusual for the “out” spouse (the one who is not the major breadwinner in the family and who does not have control over the family’s finances) to suspect that income and assets are being hidden during a […]

Tracy Coenen talks to a group of CPAs about the top ways fraud is detected within companies. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) conducts a survey of its members every two years. It consistently finds that the most common […]

While consumers generally hate income tax returns because of their complexity, they can be invaluable sources of information in divorce proceedings. Not only do they provide insight into prior years’ earnings, they can also point to assets and sources of […]

The issue of “income available for support” in divorces can be huge, particularly if only one spouse works. The issue gets complex if the earnings of one or both spouses are non-traditional. Regular wages are usually easy to evaluate in […]

Here’s a simple way to break down the idea of a corporate fraud investigation. If you’ve got a compliance department, this is way too basic for you. But if you’re at a smaller company that is new to the concept […]

What on earth do fraud and infidelity have in common? Quite a lot. While there may be no scientific studies available that analyze the correlation between financial fraud and infidelity, anecdotal evidence suggests there is a connection. A discovery of […]