In this YouTube interview, family‑law mediator Scott Levin talks with certified divorce financial analyst Lori Itkin about the two mandatory California financial disclosure forms—FL‑142 (Schedule of Assets and Debts) and FL‑150 (Income and Expense Declaration). They explain why the forms are often overwhelming, outline common pitfalls such as valuing restricted stock units, 401(k)s, distinguishing separate versus community property, and reporting self‑employment income. Lori introduces her online video‑based course, which walks users through each line of the forms, provides a color‑coded budget template, and offers guidance on tricky valuation questions. The conversation emphasizes that accurate, complete disclosures are essential for mediators to calculate fair asset splits and for the DissoMaster calculator to determine child and spousal support. They also note that incomplete or inaccurate forms can lead to unfair settlements and erode trust in mediation. At the end, they promote a discount code for the course.
Chapters
Hi everyone, this is, uh, Scott Levin, Chief Peacekeeper, and I'm here with a very good friend of mine, Lori Itkin. How are you, Lori?
I'm great, Scott. Thanks for having me.
Of course. So Lori and I have recorded a couple other videos in the past. Um, she is an extraordinary certified divorce financial analyst, and how, um, she helps my clients— so I'm a family law mediator So parties that are going through divorce engage me together, and then the 3 of us work together to figure out all the aspects of their separation. And oftentimes I've worked with Lori, who I bring into those mediations to work with my clients on things such as, you know, how to, how to divide and value restricted stock units or 401s that have existed in part prior to marriage and in part after marriage, and then after the date of separation. So there's all these technical financial elements of divorce that someone like Lori fills in for the mediator or the litigators when you're going through divorce. So today what we wanted to talk about is something that is relevant to anyone starting the divorce process. In California, there are 2 financial disclosure forms that everybody must complete by law during the process. And one concerns each party's income and expenses, and the second concerns your assets and debts. And these forms are antiquated. They're sometimes overwhelming to clients. And so in mediation, it is— it's a godsend when people come to the mediations with the forms completed In full, they're detailed, but that can be tricky for people. And so Lori actually has a brand new solution that she's developed, and I'm going to let her speak, I promise. You know, that helps anyone in California fill out and understand and accurately complete what, what are called the 2 financial disclosures. So Lori, can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what you're offering?
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, happy to be here, Scott. I, I tried to fill a need that I saw. I created an online course that actually is a con— is a, is a sequence of videos of me actually showing you the forms. And, um, okay, you're screen sharing. Great. There it is. Hey, there you go. All right, so this is an example. Actually, this is the link To the online course. And you see we have a picture of a lady who's freaking frustrated filling out, you know, thinking, how am I going to fill out these forms? As Scott mentioned, you have the FL-142, which is the Schedule of Assets and Debts. And you and your spouse are required to disclose all assets and debts, whether they're marital or they're your separate property or a combination. And then, as Scott mentioned, there's the FL-150, which is the Income and Expense Declaration. And it's really important that the income be shown accurately because that's how child and spousal support in part is based on, not fully, but that's a very big component. And this is the curriculum of the course. You can see I have videos of each. And if you're basically— there's a lot of— if you ever looked at these forms, and if you haven't gone through a divorce, you're gonna have to do these forms. It's overwhelming. They're asking you about every single asset and debt you could even think of. And with the income and expenses, it's very confusing. So, so let's just talk about a little about this. You know, you, if you're working with a mediator or an attorney, you'll probably get instructions on how to complete these forms. Or the attorney or mediator may have their own template. to gather this information. If you're doing a divorce on your own, you're going to have to fill these out. And let's just be honest, most of the information available on the internet isn't really comprehensive enough to fill out these forms. So I wanted to— let's— I know we only have a few minutes, so let's highlight some of the challenges that people may have in filling out these forms. There is a column That allows you to state whether or not an asset or a debt is your separate property. And I have some videos explaining what that might mean in the context of a house where somebody purchased a home before marriage, in the context of a 401 where— here he's showing you the forms, folks, in real time. Phantom White with a beard. We're on it today. Yes, you're on it. We didn't even practice this. So you can see there's a column for separate property and 401. You or your spouse might have had money in a 401 before you got married. So also, if you've been separated a long time, 2 or 3 years, you may be confused about, am I supposed to put the current value of all these things or the date of separation value of all all these things. On number 11, with stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, if I get RSUs at work or stock options, where the heck do I put that? What's the value of those? I help you answer these questions. And then when it comes to FL-150, which Scott's not ready to show it, but that's your income and expense declaration. You're— oh, you're right on it.
Oh, I'm sorry. I was on it. Okay, I'm coming back.
You're on it. There you go. He's trying to keep up with me. Okay, so if you go down—
This one really is overwhelming for people.
Yeah, and like on the, on the next page, it's going to ask you all these things about your income and stuff. And here's the kicker: if you're a W-2 employee, this is a no-brainer. If you're self-employed, this can be maddening. Do you have a Schedule C? Are you an S corp? Are you a C— do you have a C corp that you own and you get dividends? What happens if you get a bonus from work? What— and what does this mean? You've got rental property income. Is that the income before expenses for the property? Is it not? I teach you all this stuff in this course. And look, if you do— if you spend the time on the course, which is going to be about 1 to 2 hours for most people, maybe even slightly longer if you have a lot of different assets, You are going to be able to feel confident when you bring these forms into your attorney or mediator. They will probably be 95% accurate. Let's talk about the budget. See this budget here? Antiquated, as Scott mentioned. I mean, it's so confusing. I actually have in my course a comprehensive budget template, all color-coded with like 18 different colors.
Wow.
That is detailed in that it allows you to feed that stuff into these These rows. So let's— okay, so that's tedious, but at the end of the day, Scott, let's, let's talk about why it's important for you and your spouse to have accurate and complete forms. Tell us why.
Well, to have— you need to have accurate forms because the— what if you're in mediation?
You're—
the mediator is going to use those forms in order to help, to help you guys divide your assets. So what you list there The mediator is going to go through and say, okay, so your house, you agree on the fair market value of X. That's one of the things that you put into the file. If you have a house, you put what you believe the fair market value to be. So if you both put the same value, that means that you're agreeing that, that, that's the number you're going to use. How much do you owe on the house? Well, some people just eyeball that, but it's really important to understand exactly what you owe, because if there's going to be a buyout on that property, You need to take what the fair market value is less what, what you guys owe, and then you get the net, net, net value, and then you divide that into 2. It gets complicated, but you have to have accurate numbers there for the, for the mediator or yourselves if you're doing it yourself to work through those numbers and figure out a fair and equitable split.
And if you don't take the time to do this, because we know they're tedious, everyone hates to do it. You may actually create for yourself an unfair settlement because the information simply is missing or not accurate. And that's assets and debts. And there's things we don't even think about. Do you ever think about that there might be cash value in a life insurance policy? I certainly don't think about that every day. So, you know, it's really important and dates and all that. And then when we get to the income and expenses— Can you talk a little bit about why income is so important when calculating child and spousal support?
Yeah, so it's really half the equation or more. So for— to determine child support and spousal support, there's a calculator called the DissoMaster, and you put in each party's gross monthly earnings, and you also factor in the time split that each of you have custody with the children. So if you, you know, each make $100,000, you both— you— that goes into one category. And then if it's 60/40 custody, that goes into the other. And then the, the calculator will give you a child support amount that the court does not allow the support to be less than that amount for most people. So it's really, you know, You need to really look at your pay stubs, understand what numbers to use, and make them accurate. The last thing you want to have happen in mediation is to have the other side say, hey, you put in the wrong number for your income because it's so important. And even if you did it innocently, it's a real problem. The other side really loses trust. And, and a lot of mediators might not catch that because they're not— they're looking at the forms. And not necessarily looking at the support data.
When you're self-employed, it may not be clear to you what your income really is, and the form by itself doesn't really tell you how to do it. Anyway, that's the deal. We have this course available to help you. I'd like to offer for those of you who are viewing this and would like to check out the course, Scott's going to put the link in the body of the YouTube description. And, uh, we'll have a special code to give you 20% off the course. It's very affordably priced, and you will get so much value out of it just based on the feedback I've already received. And what a peace of mind to know that you're completing these tedious, horrible forms accurately and completely.
I agree. Well, thank you, Lori, for being here today, and, uh, Everyone check that out. Click on the code, uh, on the link for the discounted rate. And, um, you know, Lori is a really invaluable resource, uh, for all financial-related matters to divorce. So thank you so much for being here today.
