Alimony

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This debate is as old as “guns vs. butter” but it has intensified in the past decade as interest yields have collapsed.  As we “head to the Fed” meeting next month a 10 year treasury note gets you 2.06% and we are told that a rate cut is on the way.  There was a time…

Just before Christmas last year, Congress passed and the President signed a major tax reform package that contained a surprising wrinkle.  It abandoned a decades long provision that permitted payors of alimony or spousal support to deduct their payments from income and required recipients to report the payments and pay tax on them.

The effective…

A couple weeks ago this writer was asked to sit on a panel discussing the future of family law almost forty years after the no-fault and equitable distribution schemes were adopted and the federal government began promoting guideline based child support. One of the concerns I expressed to the Family Law Section of the state…

As this is written, the House and Senate this week are scheduled to vote upon a conference report of both houses of Congress which will “reform” tax law in a major way for the first time since the Reagan administration.  In order to secure passage, Congress needed to find some revenue enhancements to offset the…

We have still not seen a copy of the Senate bill although PBS Newshour reports that the final version adopted by the Senate was not circulated in the Senate until late Friday evening and about 5 hours before the vote.  However, it appears that the Senate bill does not change existing alimony rules.  As noted…

The general rule is that personal expenses are almost never deductible by taxpayers on Schedule “A” (Itemized Deductions) of their personal returns.  But all rules have exceptions and almost everyone is familiar with the deductions available for medical and dental expenses.  These are great deductions but with this hitch.  You only get to deduct the…