I Suspect My Girlfriend’s Parents Are Committing Tax Fraud By Misrepresenting Her Income.

Location: North Carolina

This is a throwaway account. I (31) recently got a job in another state and my girlfriend (29) and I are planning to move together. She has a wealthy family who is quite emotionally and financially controlling. They are not happy about us moving and have been making some very serious financial threats that would put her in a tough spot.

These threats we can deal with, but in the course of making them, her mother indicated that if she moved away and got a job making $50k, then that would be a huge downgrade for her in terms of income. That didn’t make any sense because my girlfriend’s only receives $1000 a month from them along with the money she makes working which totals to around $30k a year for the past several years. That $1000 dollars a month comes from an LLC that her mother encouraged her to create and that has one client, the father’s business. That $1000 gets transferred once a month from a joint account owned by my girlfriend and her mother to a personal account owned by my girlfriend.

Now here is where I expect fraud is occurring. My girlfriend showed me her tax filing from last year which was done by a CPA employed by the mother. The tax filing showed that my girlfriend was making nearly $100k a year for the past 5 years. My girlfriend is absolutely confident that she is only paid $1000 a month by them, but every month, nearly $6000 is deposited by her mother into that joint account. And every month her mother goes into the bank personally and withdraws $5000 of it. I have no idea what happens to that money after that, but it is clear to me that the mother is reporting my girlfriend’s income as much higher than it is in reality.

We are just trying to be financially independent and start our own professional lives but her parents are making it as difficult as possible for us to do so. Please if anyone has any advice, we are desperate to detangle this mess, but we don’t have nearly as much money or resources as they do.