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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originally enacted by DRA 1984, required the divorce or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...)
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