- 21 -
Mrs. Spector argues that if she and Dr. Ehrenworth had not
reached an agreement, the New Jersey court would have awarded a
substantial amount of assets to her and would have required her
to use the income from those assets for her support before
considering any award of alimony. She contends that the court
would have significantly reduced any award of alimony because of
the large amount of assets awarded her.
We disagree. Although we do not speculate about how much
alimony the New Jersey court would have awarded, we think the
New Jersey court would have considered that Mrs. Spector earned
little income and Dr. Ehrenworth earned significant income during
the marriage; that she did not work outside the home during the
marriage; and that they were married for nearly 25 years. This
suggests that Mrs. Spector was entitled to receive alimony. See
Lavene v. Lavene, supra; Turner v. Turner, supra; Esposito v.
Esposito, supra.
Mrs. Spector argues that Dr. Ehrenworth agreed that he would
not claim the deduction for alimony after she remarried. She
points out that Judge Freedman of the Superior Court told
Dr. Ehrenworth that he would lose the alimony deduction if
Mrs. Spector remarried and that Dr. Ehrenworth understood this.
Notwithstanding that conversation, Dr. Ehrenworth did not agree
in writing that the payments ceased to be alimony for tax
purposes if Mrs. Spector remarried. We think the fact that the
divorce agreement does not say that the payments are alimony only
Page: Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011