McKinney Divorce Law Blog

Divorce is a financially complex process, and Texas couples will have to divide all of the assets accumulated over the course of the marriage. This can be especially difficult when two people are older or have been married for a long time. Gray divorce, which is a divorce involving two spouses over the age of 50, can be particularly complicated when it comes to property division.

One important consideration when dividing marital property is to consider tax penalties. Newer tax laws mean that the spouse who is paying alimony is no longer getting a tax break, which mean he or she may be motivated to negotiate a lower spousal support payment in exchange for a higher portion of retirement savings or other assets. The other spouse will want to consider the potential tax penalties that may come with retaining a valuable asset.

Millennials do many things differently than their parents and the generations before them, including their approach to relationships and finances. In fact, this specific generation is drastically changing up how they look at marriage, divorce and sharing financial responsibilities. By waiting longer to get married and often opting for prenuptial agreements, they are even changing what it looks like to get divorced. 

Some Texas couples may decide that drafting a prenup is not necessary because they are not wealthy. What many do not realize is that these agreements can do much more than just decide what will happen to marital property if a couple divorces. Millennials may not be exceptionally wealthy, but they often use these agreements to outline how they will divide their debt if they split up.

There is one age group in Texas and beyond that has been filing for divorce at a greatly increased rate over the past two decades. People who are ages 55 and older are in this group, and many of them have determined they would rather start afresh on their own in life, even at an older age, than stay in unhappy marriages. Property division is often a complex topic in later-in-life divorces, especially regarding taxes and Individual Retirement Accounts.

If one or both spouses tapped into IRA assets through a 72(t) distribution, trying to split the remaining assets between spouses in divorce can be quite complicated. Such situations often spark challenges, such as how to avoid modification when splitting an account from which 72(t) payments are being made. IRAs are not part of qualified domestic relations orders but are still subject to division in divorce proceedings.

When Texas parents decide to divorce, they typically understand that their decision is going to have a significant impact on their children's lives. Many parents want to make the process as painless as possible, so they agree to file a no-fault divorce, then amicably workout the terms of their agreements. In other cases, however, an extenuating issue might prompt a concerned parent to file for sole custody of his or her children.

A parent who does so is tasked with convincing the judge overseeing the case that legitimate reasons exist for making the request. Just cause for not wanting the other parent involved to have physical or legal custody of the children in question must also be shown. In most cases, the court believes a shared custody arrangement is best for kids, so a parent might have his or her work cut out to prove otherwise.