Tatiana Tsoir: Money, Financial Abuse, and Starting Over

A man asks Tatiana Tsoir what financial abuse even means. She gives him the version he will recognize: a spouse who stepped out of a career for the family and cannot walk back into it at the same level years later, and who therefore cannot leave. She says she has had to explain this more than once, which tells you how invisible it is to people who have never been on the receiving end.

Tatiana Tsoir is a CPA, an author and speaker, and the founder of the nonprofit Society for Financial Independence. She arrived in the United States as a first-generation immigrant, passed her CPA exam within a year of graduating into a recession, took an MBA in taxation, and started her own firm. She is also a survivor of an abusive relationship roughly twenty years ago, and she is candid about the fact that the people who ask why you did not just leave have no idea what they are asking.

She and Lisa start with why money is not an ordinary practical problem. In Maslow's terms it belongs to the security level, so when it is threatened, everything above it stops being available to you, and that effect multiplies when children depend on you. Tatiana walks through the tax mechanics people get caught by: the 2018 change that ended the deduction for the paying spouse and stripped out the incentive to be generous, creative accounting done to suppress income for alimony and child support, and why she will not do that work no matter who asks. She tells the story of a client whose structure of entities and transfers was found anyway by the other side's forensic accountant, and what it cost him.

Her argument through all of it is that not knowing is the vulnerability, and that women in particular are steered away from learning how tax and money work until the day they need it. The second half is what she built in response. The Bookkeeper Project runs through her nonprofit and offers scholarship-funded training to women, teens, first-generation immigrants, and abuse survivors, in a skill that is portable, works from home, has no emergencies in it, and does not care how old you are. She addresses the objection she hears most, that the applicant is bad at math, and explains why the actual requirements are logical reasoning and time management. She and Lisa close on how to apply.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why money sits at the security level of Maslow's hierarchy, and what that explains
• What financial abuse looks like when there is no obvious incident to point to
• The 2018 alimony tax change, and how it altered the negotiation
• Hidden assets, forensic accountants, and why the structures usually come apart
• Why learning the basics of tax before you need them is the real protection
• The Bookkeeper Project, who it is for, and what the training covers
• Why bookkeeping suits a parent rebuilding an income, and what it actually requires

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Biohacking, and what it has to do with money
3:00 What financial abuse looks like in a divorce
7:00 Why money sits on Maslow's security level
9:00 The 2018 alimony tax change, and creative accounting
11:00 Hidden assets, forensic accountants, and educating yourself first
13:00 The Bookkeeper Project: a skill you can use from home
17:00 Her own history, and who the scholarships are for
18:00 But I'm bad at math, and why that is not the barrier
23:00 How to apply, and where to find Tatiana

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Tatiana Tsoir: https://tatianatsoir.com/
🔗 The Bookkeeper Project, Society for Financial Independence: https://www.soffind.org/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.