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original divorce decree was entered in accord with the
stipulation of petitioner and Ms. Zurn. That decree ordered
petitioner to pay "$1.00 (one dollar) per month for a period of
15 years (fifteen years)" for Ms. Zurn's support. It was
petitioner's and Ms. Zurn's understanding, however, that the
monthly payment was to be $1,000, the amount that was paid each
month during the 15-year period.
Prior to the end of the 15-year period and during the audit
of petitioner's tax returns that preceded this litigation,
petitioner was asked to substantiate the annual $12,000 alimony
claim. It was then that petitioner discovered the divorce decree
did not reflect $1,000-per-month alimony payments. Instead, the
decree ordered $1-per-month alimony payments. Thereafter,
petitioner and Ms. Zurn, by means of a stipulation, caused the
divorce decree to be modified nunc pro tunc by a State court
judge. The document modifying the original decree states that
the nunc pro tunc change from $1 to $1,000 was made to correct a
clerical error in the original decree.
This Court has addressed the effect of a nunc pro tunc
divorce decree on an earlier decree. Several cases have given
effect, for tax purposes, to the nunc pro tunc change where it
corrected a mistake that had been made in the original decree.
Johnson v. Commissioner, 45 T.C. 530, 533 (1966). Johnson
distinguished certain earlier cases in which the nunc pro tunc
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