If I had separate personal bank accounts prior to marriage, but I file my yearly tax return jointly with my husband during marriage, does that make my separate accounts to become community property? So in case of a divorce, does my husband entitle to half of my separate bank accounts because we filed our taxes jointly for the past couple years. We both live in California in our entire marriage.
Thank you.
Answer
How you file taxes isn't important to your question. What is important is whether you have been depositing earnings during the marriage in the separate accounts. If so, you have likely comingled the funds such that the whole account will be deemed community property. You may be able to salvage SOME of the original balance on the date of marriage if you can show what it was on that date and that the balance never dipped below a certain amount. And of course if you just kept the accounts and never put any earnings earned during the marriage in them, or any other community assets in them, then they remain separate no matter what you do on your taxes.
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