By Jason Kohlmeyer, Family Law Attorney
A forensic accountant is an investigative accountant who traces, values, and verifies money in a divorce. In a high-income or high-net-worth Minnesota case, I bring one in to do three things: pin down what the marital estate is actually worth, find income or assets a spouse is not reporting, and turn complicated financial records into evidence a judge can rely on. If you own a business or a farm, hold complex investments, or suspect your spouse is hiding money, this is often the difference between a fair settlement and a costly mistake.
I have practiced Minnesota family law for 26 years, much of it in high-conflict and high-asset cases involving farms and closely held businesses. Below, I explain how forensic accounting fits into a Minnesota divorce, when it is worth the cost, and what the law actually requires.
Think of a forensic accountant as part investigator, part appraiser, part translator. They reconstruct the financial history of a marriage from tax returns, bank statements, business books, loan applications, and credit card records.
In practice, the work falls into a few categories. They value hard-to-price assets like a business, a professional practice, or a farm operation. They calculate a spouse’s true income when a W-2 does not tell the whole story. They trace whether an asset is marital or nonmarital. And when the numbers do not add up, they look for money that has been moved, hidden, or spent down.
The other reason I hire them is testimony. A forensic accountant can serve as a qualified expert witness and explain their findings on the stand. A spreadsheet you prepare yourself carries far less weight than an independent expert walking a judge through the analysis.
Not every divorce needs a forensic accountant. If both spouses earn a salary, rent their home, and share one bank account, you are usually better off saving the fee. I will tell you when I think the expense is not justified.
The cases that genuinely call for one share a few features. One spouse owns or controls a business, partnership, or farm. There is significant self-employment or cash income. The estate includes complex holdings such as stock options, deferred compensation, rental property, and retirement accounts of varying types. There has been a sudden, unexplained drop in income or account balances. Or you simply cannot see the full financial picture because your spouse handled the money.
Suspicion alone is not proof. But if your gut tells you the lifestyle and the reported income do not match, that gap is exactly what a forensic accountant is trained to investigate.
Minnesota is an equitable distribution state. Under Minnesota Statutes section 518.58, the court divides marital property in a way that is fair, which is not always an even split. A judge weighs factors such as the length of the marriage, each spouse’s contribution to acquiring the property, and each spouse’s circumstances. In long marriages, the result often lands near 50/50, but the law does not guarantee that.
The valuation date matters as much as the percentage. Marital property is generally valued as of the date of the initial prehearing settlement conference, though the court can choose another date. In a high-asset case, the right valuation date can significantly affect the amount, especially when a business or land value is changing.
This distinction decides what actually gets divided. Under Minnesota Statutes section 518.003, marital property is generally everything either spouse acquires during the marriage, regardless of whose name is on the title. Property acquired during the marriage is presumed marital.
Nonmarital property stays with the spouse who owns it. That includes property owned before the marriage, gifts or inheritances received by one spouse alone, and anything traceable to those sources. The catch is tracing. If you inherited money and deposited it into a joint account, then used it for marital expenses, proving the nonmarital claim years later can be difficult. This is where a forensic accountant earns the fee, by following the dollars from origin to today.
Minnesota law takes this seriously, and so do the courts here. Both spouses owe each other a fiduciary duty during the divorce and even in contemplation of one. That comes from Minnesota Statutes section 518.58, subdivision 1a.
If the court finds that a spouse transferred, hid, encumbered, or disposed of marital assets outside the normal course of business or the necessities of life, the judge must put the wronged spouse back in the position they would have been in otherwise. In plain terms, the court can credit the dissipated money back to you as if it never left.
The burden of proof is on the spouse making the claim. That is the practical problem. You have to show that the money existed and that it was moved improperly. A forensic accountant builds that record, identifying the transfers, the timing, and where the funds went. Common patterns I see include income that disappears the year a divorce is filed, payments to a friend or family member that get repaid after the case closes, and a business that suddenly reports new expenses or a drop in revenue.
Income drives spousal maintenance, and income is exactly what gets blurred in high-earning households. Under Minnesota Statutes section 518.552, the court looks at both the financial need of the spouse requesting maintenance and the other spouse’s ability to pay.
For a salaried employee, the ability to pay is easy to read off a pay stub. For a business owner, it is not. Personal expenses can run through the company. Income can be deferred or reinvested. A forensic accountant normalizes the numbers, separating genuine business costs from personal spending dressed up as overhead, so the maintenance figure rests on real income rather than a convenient tax return.
Yes. Minnesota requires both spouses to exchange financial information, and concealing assets is not allowed. Each party generally must serve a financial affidavit and supporting documents early in the case. (I would verify the current disclosure rule citation with your attorney, as the specific rule numbers are updated periodically.)
Disclosure rules give a forensic accountant a starting point, because the documents a spouse produces, or fails to produce, are themselves evidence. When someone leaves an account off their affidavit, that omission becomes part of the story.
In this part of the state, a high net worth divorce is often a farm or ag-business divorce. In Blue Earth County around Mankato and Olmsted County around Rochester, the most valuable asset on the table is frequently a working operation, not a brokerage account. That changes the forensic work.
Valuing a farm means accounting for land, equipment, stored grain, livestock, and program payments, all of which move with commodity prices and the season. The same operation can be worth meaningfully different amounts in spring versus after harvest, which makes the valuation date a live fight. I have also seen income smoothed across years through prepaid inputs and deferred grain sales, which is legitimate tax planning but can mask a real picture of earnings. A forensic accountant who understands agricultural books, not just corporate ones, is essential in these cases. A general practitioner can miss how ordinary an unusual-looking farm transaction really is, in either direction.
It depends on what is at stake. A forensic engagement is a real expense, often several thousand dollars and sometimes more, in a contested business valuation.
But when the marital estate runs into the high six or seven figures, when a business or farm anchors the case, or when assets may be hidden, the analysis usually pays for itself many times over. Getting the valuation or the income number wrong by even a few percent can cost far more than the accountant’s fee. The honest answer is that this is a case-by-case decision, and I would rather talk you out of an unnecessary expert than watch you overpay for one you did not need.
About the author: Jason Kohlmeyer is a Minnesota family law attorney with over 25 years years of experience and a partner at Kohlmeyer Hagen Law Office in Mankato and Rochester. He has practiced family law exclusively since 2010 and has handled hundreds of Family Law cases across southern Minnesota. He is the author of The Divorce Survival Guide: Getting Divorced in Minnesota and has spoken on family law topics for the American Bar Association, Minn. State Bar associations and American Trial Lawyers Association. He is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association and has been recognized by Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers of America for many years.
