Examples Of Alimony & Spousal Support California Divorce

Today, we’re answering the question what are examples of alimony payments and this is coming directly from the franchise tax board.

I found interesting publication they put out where they answered maybe 12 questions.

It was hard for me to find so I want to get this out on video because it gives and it talks about alimony and spousal support in California from a tax prospective.

So in this particular case they want to describe what other example of alimony payments might be because a typical alimony or spousal support payment is one party paying money, so cash, writing a check, transferring money from one party to the other.

In this they’re saying you don’t necessary have to have a cash transferred. There don’t have to be cash going from one party you know one spouse to the next.

That there can be in this could be payments made to a third party can be considered alimony.

Indirect alimony may include cash payments through a third party to satisfy the obligations of a former spouse such as to provide a residence for a former spouse.

For example rent, mortgage, utilities etc., medical costs payments or other such expenses incurred by the payors former spouse.

So those are ways that you can pay spousal support instead of just having a money payment for alimony or spousal support.

You could pay your spouse’s rent. You could pay your spouse mortgage or portion there of. You could pay the mortgage if and plus alimony or spousal support and that all can be considered spousal support.

And from reading the publication the reason you may want other payments being handled as spousal support has asked this publication from the franchise tax board indicates alimony is tax deductible for the payors spouse and it has to be taxable E-VAT.

So that’s to include in their taxes if you’re receivingspousal support. So the example in this case is if you are a spouse saying ‘Oh why I didn’t know I could pay the rent. Let me pay the rent.’

If you don’t write that up as a spousal support order then you cannot deduct the amount you’re paying for rent.

Let me just make sure that’s clear. If you decide in your divorce, you’re going to pay the mortgage let’s say of your spouse and its $2,000 a month and that’s your agreement.

You guys signed the judgment you’re done and you write a check and you pay the mortgage payment every month, that’s fine.

You know in fact it’ll probably you may even want to work out that you get the mortgage deduction, the interest deduction on that.

But let’s say you didn’t? If you pay $2,000 a month for the house its $24,000 a year you’re not going to be able to deduct that payment if it’s not included as spousal support or alimony.

So being at the franchise tax board says you can use or have this described as alimony if you write it up that way that $2000 you’re paying can be considered as spousal support or alimony which is the same thing.

And you can get that tax deduction when you go to file taxes. So you could find this information on the franchise tech support website.

It was difficult to find it. I definitely want to get this out in video and we’re going to do several more about spousal support and alimony and some of the tax implications going right off the franchise tax board publications.

Tim Blankenship specializing in California Divorce, I hope this was helpful.

Feel free to call me for a free consultation. We handle divorce cases all throughout California 661-281-0266.