Lawrence Robert Gamer - Page 7

                                        - 6 -                                         
          payor and excludable from the payee’s gross income.                         
               In 1984, Congress revised section 71 in an attempt to                  
          minimize the differences in Federal tax consequences created by             
          differences in State laws and to establish an objective and                 
          uniform Federal standard as to what constitutes alimony.  See               
          sec. 422(a) of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (DRA 1984), Pub.           
          L. 98-369, 98 Stat. 795; see also H. Rept. 98-432, Part 2, 1495,            
          1496 (1984), wherein the House Ways and Means Committee                     
          articulated the purpose of the 1984 amendment as follows:                   
               The Committee bill attempts to define alimony in a way                 
               that would conform to general notions of what type of                  
               payments constitute alimony as distinguished from                      
               property settlements and to prevent the deduction of                   
               large, one-time lump-sum property settlements.                         
               [Emphasis added.]                                                      
                         *    *    *    *    *    *    *                              

               In order to prevent the deduction of amounts which are                 
               in effect transfers of property unrelated to the                       
               support needs of the recipient, the bill provides that                 
               a payment qualifies as alimony only if the payor * * *                 
               has no liability to make any such payment for any                      
               period following the death of the payee spouse. * * *                  

               For payments to constitute alimony, section 71(b)(1)(D), as            
          originally enacted by DRA 1984, required the divorce or                     
          separation instrument to state that there was no liability on the           
          payor spouse to make the payments after the death of the payee              
          spouse.3  However, under the statutory law of most States,                  

               3  As amended by the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, Pub. L.            
                                                             (continued...)           





Page:  Previous  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  Next

Last modified: May 25, 2011