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that petitioner’s obligation to pay alimony will terminate upon
the death of Okerson but that petitioner will then be liable to
start making corresponding payments in substitute of the alimony
payments. The complete termination upon the death of the payee
spouse of all payments made as alimony or in substitute thereof
is an indispensable part of Congress’s scheme for deducting a
payment as alimony for Federal income tax purposes, and it is
something that may not be overcome simply because the payor may
establish an intent that the payments be deductible by the payor
spouse as alimony. As the House Committee on Ways and Means
stated sweepingly in its report on section 71: “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.” H. Rept.
98-432, supra at 1496.
Having decided that the definition of alimony for Federal
income tax purposes turns on a fulfillment of the statutory test
and not on the intent of the parties to a divorce proceeding or
of the court overseeing that proceeding, we now turn to deciding
whether the post death payments described in the decrees are
substitute payments within the context of section 71(b)(1)(D).
Under section 1.71-1T(b), Q&A-14, Temporary Income Tax Regs.,
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