An IRS Double Standard for Men & Women on Alimony

2008-01-15
By

Fred, a reader, recently wrote me with an interesting piece of information on how the IRS treats alimony and legal fees. Fred writes:

“IRS Publication 504 (Taxes for Divorced Individuals) states on page 20:

“‘FEES FOR GETTING ALIMONY…Because you must include alimony you receive in your gross income, you can deduct fees you pay to get or collect alimony.’
 
“This means that all legal fees the ex-wife pays in association with her receiving alimony are deductible as a Miscellaneous Deduction on Form 1040, Schedule-A. It doesn’t matter whether she is trying to retain the alimony she is now getting or if she initiates the proceedings to obtain more alimony. The legal fees are deductible to her, but your legal fees are not deductible to you. Even if the legal fees were just to defend yourself from having to pay more alimony.”

This seems rather unfair–any accountants out there know more about it?

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  • mruffolo

    A different injustice: the IRS, a government agency, does not consider a cash from loan income, so it is not taxable, on the other hand Family Court, a government agency, considers cash from a loan income to set child support obligations.

  • amfortas

    Are FMJs deductible?

  • daveinga

    alimony taxable to men but fees to collect deductible to women

    CS not deductible for men yet not reportable as taxable income by women

    wonder about all the other handouts women get?

    ALL LAWS MADE THESE DAYS ARE FOR WOMEN AND AGAINST MEN.

    that’s what all those WAVA tax billions ($$) are buying. every piece of proposed legislation in this country has been thoroughly reviewed and approved by tax payer funded feminist lobbyists.

    irony – mostly funded by taxes paid by men.

  • Artfldgr

    Child support is not deductible for the payee, and is not taxable income by the recipient. In effect whatever percentage is assigned is actually larger as the amount does not shift tax burden to the recipient. So if the support is 3000 to someone the recipient receives that money tax free. To their ‘view’ it’s as if they make an extra 4000 a year and pay taxes. The persona paying the 3000 amount has it taken from post tax dollars and so they pay the amount AND the tax on the amount. Barring the 3000 from change or consideration, it’s as if the person who is payee pays a higher tax for their money than a non payee.

    Even more interesting is that if the transfer was taxed from the recipient, the result in most cases would be that the payee pays less tax, but also the person receiving it is in a lower tax bracket, possibly on support, and so there would be NO taxes paid by the recipient.

    So a payee that makes 30k would have their taxable salary reduced to 27k…
    The recipient who is below poverty would get the money, and the taxes would be zero to the state…
    The recipient who was wealthy or working would pay tax to the state on that.

    By making things the way they are now, the state insures that the monies are taxes at the higher rate of the payee rather than the lower rate of the recipient…

    Veddy interesting, no?

    Taxation without representation is common now that tax is ‘revenue streams’, and has no limit due to social programs that redistribute wealth and in essence create state controlled breeding of humans.






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