Practice Area · Financial Complexity
Income determination.
Maintenance and child support both begin with a single deceptively simple question: what is each spouse’s income? For a W-2 employee the answer is a pay stub. For an owner or executive, it is the most contested number in the case.
The Statutory Sweep
“Income from any source” — construed broadly.
Colorado’s support statutes define gross income expansively: salaries, bonuses, commissions, dividends, rents, trust income, capital gains, severance, annuities, monetary gifts — and, tellingly, moneys drawn by a self-employed individual for personal use that are deducted as business expenses. Courts construe the definition broadly, and tax treatment does not control: a dollar the IRS lets you deduct can still be income for support. The exclusions are narrow — child support received, means-tested benefits, income from hours beyond full-time, and retirement-account growth a party has not actually taken (with a caution: a distribution that could be taken penalty-free may be considered).
The Owner’s Ledger
Gross receipts minus ordinary and necessary expenses.
For self-employment and business income, the statute defines income as gross receipts minus the ordinary and necessary expenses required to produce it — and expressly excludes accelerated depreciation and any expense the court finds inappropriate. Recent amendments let courts substitute straight-line depreciation even where the tax return used accelerated. In practice this is an add-back exercise: owner draws, personal expenses run through the company, vehicles, phones and other significant in-kind benefits that reduce living expenses. Colorado decisions treat them as income when significant — the support ledger is not the tax return.
K-1s, Retained Earnings & Passive Owners
Paper income versus cash in hand.
Pass-through owners face the K-1 question: income was allocated, but was it received? Colorado’s statutes draw a meaningful line — a passive investor holding a minority interest with no managerial input may have income recognized only to the extent of actual cash distributions. A controlling owner enjoys no such shelter, because a controlling owner decides what gets distributed. Which side of that line a client sits on — and how convincingly the record proves it — can swing support by an order of magnitude.
Volatile Compensation
Bonuses, equity, and the averaging fight.
Fluctuating income invites averaging: courts have discretion to use multi-year averages of past earnings, and recent decisions have approved them. Bonuses count when the record supports them, though courts may decline to speculate about future ones. Stock options generally become income only when exercised, and only as to the spread; deferred compensation not currently accessible is generally not income yet. For an executive whose compensation arrives in four different forms on three different schedules, the averaging methodology is not an accounting detail — it is the case.
Imputation & Vocational Evaluations
When the court assigns an income you are not earning.
A parent or spouse who is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed can be attributed potential income, with statutory safe harbors for incapacity, care of a very young child, good-faith career changes, and qualifying education. The statute now directs courts to labor-market evidence — hours actually available in the person’s sector, prevailing earnings — and defaults, absent reliable data, to a 32-hour, 50-week benchmark rather than the old full-time assumption. Where imputation is genuinely contested, a vocational evaluation supplies the record the statute demands; deployed early, it protects either side of the argument.
The rest of this chapter.
Closely held businesses, professional practices, executive and equity compensation, trusts, real estate, and the tracing that decides what is marital and what is not.
- Business Valuationthe number that decides the case→
- High-Asset Divorcecomplex estates, disclosure, and the five-year rule→
- Business Owner Divorcekeeping the company you built→
- Complex Financial Divorcevalue, characterize, tax-effect — then divide→
- Property Divisionequitable, not automatic 50/50→
- Separate Propertya records-management discipline→
- Spousal Maintenancethe formula, published with a worked example→
- Executive Compensationproperty or income — the line worth arguing→
- Stock Options & RSUstax character changes real value→
- Trust Intereststhe instrument, not the balance, decides→
- Real Estatevalue, equity, and after-tax proceeds differ→
- Retirement AssetsQDROs, and three different currencies→
- Professional Practicesgoodwill, licensure, and buyouts→
- Tax Strategythe settlement that matters is the after-tax one→
- Hidden Assets & Forensic Discoverythe disclosure duty, and the five-year hammer→
- Cryptocurrency & Digital Assetsfindable, valuable, divisible→
- Married to the Business Ownerleveling the information field→
- Income Determinationwhat “income” means when you own the companyYou are here
Engagement
The support number is built, not found. Build it correctly.
A consultation is a scheduled working session — in person in Greenwood Village or by video — in which we go through your situation and I tell you what I would do. It is a paid meeting, not a free call and not a sales pitch; my assistant quotes the consultation fee when you schedule. There is no chatbot here: the contact form and the phone both reach my office, my assistant reviews every inquiry personally, and the meeting goes on my calendar. Please hold the confidential details until we have run a conflicts check.