Examples or ideas where to start?
An Estate Planning attorney, I’m guessing.
Any updates for this episode of Jerry Springer?
If I were him I would refuse to leave the condo and lawyer up or push for a 50\50 settlement.
Sorry I don’t have a lot of insightful advice. This is one of the reasons I don’t ever see myself getting married… it is just too risky of a proposition in today’s day and age. Previous generations prevented this type of bad behavior by shaming those who got divorced. You also had to have a valid reason to get divorced. Those things provided an incentive for families to work things out.
Today? Divorce is not seen as a bad thing and is frequently encouraged. No fault divorce means you don’t even need a reason to call it quits and cash out. In California he could be responsible for lifetime alimony which is an absurd indentured servitude concept.
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Honestly curious here… What kinds of things are you able to do without the marriage certificate that earn you more money than having it, or that you are unable to do with it?
I may be daft, but aside from protections against divorce I don’t see many financial benefits for not being married. You can still apply for credit, bank accounts, mortgages etc separately rather than jointly. You can still file taxes separately.
Benefits for being married include adding your spouse to your insurance plan and being able to file jointly, which is often more beneficial than filing sepate unless you are a high income earner, especially if there is a major difference in earnings. There’s also non-monetary benefits such as preventing potential issues like ER visits or life saving medical decisions which are usually easier if you’re a spouse.
Obviously the big reason against marriage is asset protection from a potential divorce.
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Have the un/under-employed spouse collect welfare, food stamps, section 8, Medicaid/cheap Obamacare, EIC on their taxes, etc.
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I’ve never qualified for most of those benefits myself but I thought they all went off of Household Income and I thought a household for those benefits would include the mother of my child, even if we weren’t married but it seems that might not necessarily be the case.
It looks like healthcare benefits should work, but can you really say you don’t make meals together with your significant other to qualify for food benefits?
It sounds like section 8 would also count the higher income earner as a family member if they resided in the house/rental unless they were exempt by being disabled or elderly.
Does welfare consider income from others living in the house or is it strictly allowable for single tax filing status?
I’m trying to decipher which of these are actionable benefits that might be received by not being married and if a low income earner might make it worthwhile to get divorced to be able to actually receive these benefits?nu
Interesting thought experiment. I was thinking in terms of having an ex-wife purchase a section 8 house and having her receive housing vouchers (if she qualified with me also living there). It didn’t occur to me to think of renting my house to her as a section 8 tenant.
I suppose there may be several ways of being able to work things. For an example, my wife is actually a sole employee of my side business I started a year ago. She receives a small income and the company doesn’t provide any ‘benefits’ but it certainly could if it were worth while to do so. I simply hired her so she would receive SS credit when she quit her seasonal part time job.
As my wife and filing jointly, her being an employee doesn’t provide any tangible tax benefits, but if we weren’t married her wage and hours worked could be modified to potentially be advantageous for many different situations, some including receiving government benefits. I never really considered this line of thinking until now. May have to dig a little deeper and run some scenarios. For me, filing head of household (with my son as a dependant) would not be that much more of a tax burden than filing MFJ, but one of many questions might be if she could count our son as a part of her ‘household’ if I claimed him, etc.
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There’s a whole lot of gray areas, where people will insist it’s complying to the letter of the law while others will cry fraud (and both can make valid arguments). Benefits generally consider a “household”, but there can still be multiple households living under one roof.
I’ve known people who were “independent”, but lived with their parents. And their parents were considered part of their household when qualifying for welfare benefits. I live with family, but I am not part of their household. For the most part, it comes down to specifically how you answer the questions; it can often legitimately be framed either way.
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Thanks all for the awesome discussion. As I look more into it I see there may actually be significant potential savings in going the divorce route. Still a lot of details to look into but this is certainly an interesting excercise if nothing more.
One interesting tidbit, if the ex is able to claim the child as a tex dependent in the divorce agreement, I would still be able to file as head of household if the child lives with me more than half the year, even if I don’t claim him as a dependent on my taxes. Tons of little details that can make things work in one’s favor for taxes. No wonder corporations find and use every little loophole for benefit.
Tax returns are pretty straightforward - either you are married or you aren’t.
But when considering the concept of a household for other benefits - when living as a single family unit, merely getting a divorce isn’t going to create two households. You’ll have to take other steps and formalities to unwind the single household, which will be much more difficult than had you never married in the first place. I don’t think you are particularly focused on that aspect, but it’s worth noting.
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Agreed and thanks for emphasizing this. To be clear, this is more an exercise in curiosity for me as there is a bit of inherent risk of exposure to potential issues when gaming any system.
Most of us feel ok with working within stated rules to game credit card and bank account bonuses, etc but this topic is a bit more grey and consequences of gaming government benefits or tempting IRS audits, even if you can defend your intentions as completely legitimate and reasonable is no joke.
Aside from that is the unstated ‘moral’ aspect of detriment to society by collecting benefits from taxpayer’s money. I am a tax payer and of course, we all want to minimize our tax burden and hopefully all do so with honest and legitimate intention.
We are all aware that this country is full of people who game the system by placing an undue burden on our tax paying society to receive benefits. The days of our grandparents who chose not to take benefits they can rightfully receive because they are proud and don’t want those handouts is nigh at an end and many now view it as take whatever you can get.
I believe there is also a line between taking what you can rightfully receive and changing your situation to take advantage of things you otherwise probably shouldn’t. But I’ll leave it at that. In the end it is a line between ability and morality in any situation and we see every day whether it’s banks too big to fail or impoverished families having as many kids as they can for the benefit the system provides. We all place our own line in the sand. This topic struck my curiosity though because I have never qualified for many of these benefits and was curious to be aware of what it might take a household to be able to receive them.
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Jeez! Now, I expect some whippersnapper to call me “pops”.
And thanks for mentioning the “moral” aspects. I truly feel out-of-touch that it has to be mentioned, and the whole idea wasn’t shouted down near the beginning of the thread. Fortunately, I’ve only got about 30 or so more years to see this play out.
Depending on the proof, I may not even recognize a lot of it. 
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LOL. To be fair, my father has the same moral values but he has always referred to these values as being bestowed upon him by his parents who wouldn’t take a nickel from anyone, being the last ‘great generation’.
My grandfather is long deceased and my grandmother is in her mid 90’s, so I’m no ‘whippersnapper’ myself.
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Obviously the father cheated on his wife a long time ago but they stayed together “for the kids”. The two investor siblings know about this but the other two siblings do not know. The father was simply used to facilitate the condo purchase. Now that he’s no longer needed, the wife wants a divorce and 70% of the money in the accounts as reparation. Who’s the “good”, the “bad”, and the “ugly” now??
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It’s supposed to be household income, but there an awful lot of recipients who have a boyfriend or whatever who’s “just visiting“.
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I’m just gonna leave this right here without comment :