What is "imputed" income in a divorce case?
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We have had some recent litigation in a divorce case where we had to ask the divorce judge to "impute" income to the other spouse. This spouse refused to seek a job even though she was clearly able to do so. We found it ironic that the lawyers for this woman hired their own expert who ended up agreeing with our expert as to the employability of the woman - as well as the income she could make. Often divorce courts have to "impute" income to those spouses who are either deliberately "unemployed" or "unemployed." Often in divorce cases, one spouse refuses to make any income - or deliberately compromises his or her potential income - in an effort to prevent the other spouse from sharing in that income. This comes up very often in disputes involving child support (the support to be paid for the benefit of the children) and spousal support (the support to be paid to the spouse). Sometimes this is easy to prove - for instance when a spouse just up and quits his or her job. Sometimes it is not - for instance when a spouse is self employed and is able to hide the income or the income producing capabilities. But it never ceases to come into play in the cases we see.
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