Initiated or not, both spouses are put in situation of requiring a lawyer, usually for first time. At $100 to $300, sometimes more per hour, you fight to get 50% of your assets, only to give a large portion of it to your lawyer. It could amount to 10% or more of your half of assets. That means you are really dividing 80% of total marriage assets, instead of 100%.

Why are you sharing 20% of your marriage assets with your lawyer? This money is yours and you children’s!

Understandably, both sides are unprepared, having multiple issues to deal with at once, so they hand over control of their lives to their lawyer. They feel their lawyer will only think of and work for them. You must realize your lawyer has hundreds if not thousands of clients. You are only a file number to them.

If you saw your lawyer at store there's a good chance he or she will not recognize you. Your lawyer took your case,not because they care about you, but because they care about income you will provide. The lawyer would have taken your spouse's case had he or she gone to them first.

Why then would you let your lawyer make these life altering decisions for you? Knowing this, why would you hand over control of your divorce, your life, your future to your lawyer? Under this situation, when divorce is over, both sides feel taken advantage of by their spouse and their lawyer. They have spent $100’s to $1000’s of dollars unnecessarily.

This scenario can be avoided by preparing for your divorce in same manner as you would buy a TV.

When you decide to buy a TV, would you go to store and tell salesman to pick a TV, any TV for you, leave store knowing you'll get whatever TV salesman wants you to have?

NO WAY!

What good would it do me anyway?

Well, having your own business is one of best ways to save money on taxes and considering that many of you just finished paying Uncle Sam all your wages from January to May 2000, I thought you might be interested in this topic.

Consider this example.

If you work for someone else (as in a JOB), your finances flow somewhat like this: 1. Earn money 2. Pay Taxes 3. Spend money

When you have your own business or corporation, you: 1. Earn money 2. Spend money 3. Pay Taxes on what's left

Do you see difference here? I'm going to recommend a book for you to read if you want to understand this process better. It is called "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki. It is a great book and I highly recommend it. Now, back to our article.

When starting a business, The IRS requires only that you keep good records, conduct your affairs in a business-like manner and show that you are trying to make a profit. There are also some new tax laws that are even more in favor of those "home offices" than in previous years.

Old Tax Law: If your home office is your principal place of business, then you could deduct home office expenses.

New Tax Law: If you have a space at home that you use "regularly and exclusively for administrative or management activities" in your business, you may now qualify for a home office deduction.

Previously, if you worked outside of your home, you weren't allowed to deduct your home office because it isn't "primary" place of business. Now you can. For more information, see Internal Revenue Service publication #587 on IRS Web site, http://www.irs.treas.gov

There are a lot of deductions associated with home offices. Some things that might be deductible include a percentage of your mortgage interest, property taxes, rent, utilities, insurance, garbage collection, second phone line, cleaning fees, magazines/newspapers, office supplies and equipment.