One of the changes in the new tax law involves the tax status of alimony. Previously the payor (men) could deduct the money they pay in alimony, and the payee (women) would have it taxed as income. Starting with divorces commenced after Dec 31 2018, alimony payments will be treated like child support payments have been. Men won’t be able to deduct the amount they pay from their income, and women won’t have to pay taxes on alimony received.
You would expect that the pro divorce lobby (nearly everyone) would be cheering this enhancement to the cash and prizes we offer as a reward to women who don’t honor their wedding vows. However, the problem is ex husbands are already being bled white. It has gotten so bad that the parasite is now expressing concern for the host. All of the articles I could find on the subject object to the changes, not because they object to soaking men for women’s benefit, but because the change is seen as potentially hurting women. The NY Post/AP article explains:
How many people get alimony anyway?
Government statistics vary. The Census Bureau says 243,000 people got alimony last year, 98 percent of them women.…
What are the concerns?
Critics fear that without the deduction, higher-earning spouses won’t pay as much to their exes. New York City matrimonial lawyer Malcolm S. Taub foresees future alimony recipients losing 10 to 15 percent of what they’d get under the current law.…
The National Organization for Women and the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers opposed the change.
CNBC worries in Tax reform could shrink alimony for ex-spouses:
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, unveiled on Thursday, includes a provision to kill the deduction that taxpayers get for making such payments to an ex-spouse. Although it’s just one of the many tax breaks eliminated under the legislation, experts say it will end up most hurting the person receiving the money.
“Alimony payers won’t be able to afford to give as much because they’ll have to give it to Uncle Sam instead,” said Nancy Hetrick, a certified divorce financial analyst and senior advisor at Better Money Decisions in Phoenix, Arizona.
Forbes explains:
The bottom line: The elimination of the tax deductibility of alimony means, in most cases, the government will no longer help support the spouse receiving the income, usually the former wife and the couple’s children.
The Hill explains the same thing in GOP should divorce itself from alimony scheme in tax bill:
At first glance, one may believe Trump’s intended repeal of alimony deductions is aimed at providing tax relief to the lower-wage spouses by excluding alimony payments from taxable income..
But most seasoned family law attorneys are of the position that eliminating a tax deduction for high-income earners who make alimony payments would have unintended consequences on the low-income earning ex-spouses who receive alimony.
Market Watch explains:
Divorce lawyers say the higher-earning spouse will have more leverage to argue for lower alimony. “We settled a case this week in court where my wealthy client agreed to pay his dependent wife significant alimony because he could deduct it,” said Randy Kessler, an Atlanta-based lawyer who wrote the book, “Divorce: Protect Yourself, Your Kids, and Your Future.” “The deduction, as it stands, is a great motivator to encourage the higher wage earner to agree to help support the spouse with less income.”
USA Today ran the CNBC article I linked/quoted above, with a headline worrying that Tax reform could shrink alimony.
CBS News warns in GOP plan to cut alimony tax deduction has some divorcees on edge:
Toni Van Pelt, president of the National Organization for Women, said the tax change could make it more difficult for divorcees to get the support they need because their ex-husbands would have less money without the deduction.
“It’s something that’s really important to women,” Van Pelt said. “We are really concerned because it would make tough, tense negotiations between couples even worse.”
I’ve been watching this bill since it was announced. I went through the divorce industry rape assembly line a few years back and don’t recall any lawyers, judges, or magistrates giving a flying eff if I could afford the alimony or child support assigned to me based on their determination of my income. This will change nothing. It assumes judges will give consideration to what a man can afford based on the change in tax status. Unless the judges are compelled by law, ( & family law has no legal duty to follow any law or precedent, just to arrive at some subjective notion of equity) all that is going to happen will be that judges will continue to award what they always have, & men ( payors of alimony) will get another stick in the eye.
So….. Are they going to change it back? Cause the only thing I had to look forward to was the fact that she’d have to pay taxes on every dime Im forced to give her.
What Ute said. From everything I’ve heard/read, judges don’t really give a shit about men’s ability to pay, only that they be made to pay. Isn’t that the real problem with “imputed income” calculations. They don’t care how much you actually make, you either pay or go to jail.
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The government is turning marriage into a hostage bomb collar for husbands and women are complaining because they may be collaterally damaged.
Those are your CONservative republican legislators: Among them Ted Cruz, Orrin Hatch and Paul Ryan, who increased this load on you brothers. Those are the people I’m told care about children and intact families, from guys like you, here on Dalrock, am I right? HAHAHAHA! What a laugh.
Up to the early 90’s in Canada, child support payments were tax deductible and the recipient would have to declare it as income. I don’t have any first hand knowledge of how it affected settlements.
So if I’m getting this straight…instead of the husband giving the wife money and then she has to pay taxes on it…Uncle Sam cuts out the middle(woman) and the husband pays directly to the government?
Because if I am reading it straight…then it goes to show the nature of the state. It’s not your safety net, women.
While I agree this change is bad, I don’t believe a lot of the criticism from the left to be genuine. The last thing they want is to give Republicans in general and President Trump specifically, any credit for helping women. They will frame anything they did as anti-woman regardless.
You can bet that if this was done by President Obama or a President Hillary Clinton that this would be celebrated as a victory for women.
“Starting with divorces commenced after Dec 31 2018, alimony payments will be treated like child support payments have been.”
Does this leave divorces prior to 2018 unchanged?
Sorry if it’s a dumb question but I’m not the sharpest cookie in the shed when it comes to parsing this sort of stuff.
This is a change to the US Tax Code, not the family law codes of the various states and counties that settle such stuff.
Basically it doesn’t matter when you got your divorce. If there’s a judge someplace that said “you need to pay x to the ex every month in maintenance” then you just got stuck with the tax bill.
Sigh. Everyday I find another reason to just leave this place. Unfortunately I still have another 10 years before that really becomes feasible.
This will make divorce less desirable financially for both husbands and wives. This is a good thing.
I know there will be a lot of collateral damage during the transition period (mostly due to idiot judges that can’t do math), but in the long run it will benefit marriage stability.
This is certainly a benefit for women. Remember, there are TWO tax changes, not one. The husband now pays (previously not), and the woman does not (previously did).
That said, my point on the last thread is apt here :
Women are so pathetic about long-term planning that a country where everything is hugely rigged in favor of women, is nonetheless not attracting millions of foreign women to the trough. Hence, the gluttonous Ameri-twat is not even seeing an influx of other would-be trough-coveters.
At least that, if nothing else, would equalize things. What is the point of globalization if not to equalize the state treatment of men and women, making it impossible for ‘rich’ countries to subsidize women to such a huge degree?
The average American woman receives $40,000 year from men via the state, without doing anything at all. One would think overseas women would be all over this and deplete it. But no.
The articles say that ‘Tax Reform will Shrink Alimony’.
Instead :
i) Alimony will be the same.
ii) More men will be driven to outright poverty.
iii) More ‘mysterious’ instances of a man with nothing to lose shooting up a place (preferably at least targeting those responsible). The media will attribute it to ‘toxic masculinity’ rather than alimony.
Remember what Chris Rock said about alimony. Alimony is indeed what made OJ Simpson, a man with no prior record of criminality, crack :
I believe this, and young brothers who are thinking of marriage should internalize it fully.
Remember that OJ got divorced in California. So long as one party (he or his ex wife) remained in that state, he was forever bound by California laws. While no state demands lifetime support for children, nearly every state will hit you with lifetime alimony, if you’ve been married even a moderate amount of time (5-10 years). Remember also that there are no limits on wimminz who go back to court, seeking increases in alimony. In 20 years you will not have to pay child support on a kid born today, but you will likely be paying alimony, and in 20 years you will make a lot more money, which will be given away, in ever increasing shares, to your ex-wife. If she feels she needs a raise, she’ll just go back to court, and you’ll get stuck with it. Lose your job? Too bad. Pay up or go sit in jail for contempt.
OJ was a slave in his own country. It’s a shame he didn’t just have the fortitude to start stashing cash in Bermuda, Bahamas or Belize. Once he made that jump, it would have been much more difficult for the feminist state to get his hands on the money. He would have been a great voice for our side, too.
Note that in states with very high state tax rates (CA, NY, MA), this could be brutal.
Although, these are also the states where the few foreign single women who arrive, tend to concentrate in. There may at least be a localized acceleration of the decline in the big metros.
Boxer,
Oh, remember that Robin Williams (a gentler soul than OJ Simpson, therefore choosing not to retaliate) committed suicide for the same reason.
Then again, Robin Williams was not creative. He could have quietly relocated to France and avoided extradition to the US. Of course, the media would have hated him more than Roman Polanski (such are the values of womankind and the media these days), but he could have lived in France forever and still kept $50M of his stash.
Listen, it is nothing but a money grab. The tax will now be calculated, in most cases, on the higher income bracket. So the filthy government will get a few dollars more now.
Would love to see what amount of a few dollars more really is…..
If you’re really serious, what’s stopping you? I can understand wanting regular contact with your kids, but otherwise, I’d be hitting the bricks immediately.
Bear in mind that you will be seen as an asset in most of these countries. There are lots of nations, in North America, that are full of English speakers, where the women are nicer, the weather is better, and where your dollar will stretch a lot further. If you speak Spanish, French or Portuguese, that’s even better.
In reading through the links to Forbes, TheHill, etc. posted by Dalrock, it is interesting to see the pear clutching obliviousness to the implications of the tax plan. Consider the following admission:
“The provision would eliminate what is effectively a ‘divorce subsidy’ under current law, in that a divorced couple can often achieve a better tax result for payments between them than a married couple can.”
“Divorce subsidy” = Divorce incentive
But all the writers can’t wrap their heads around the concept that the Federal Government has potentially stolen back their incentives to ruin families. You can see the unwritten expectation that it is inconceivable that that the awards for alimony be worth less.
This bill could play out in a few different directions. If the awards for alimony are reduced commensurate to the payor’s marginal tax rate ( State & Federal), it would be financially neutral to the payor & adverse to the receiver. I would not bet money on that outcome.
If family courts somehow try to split the difference, well that will be interesting to see the ratios. In any case, the GOP sponsors of this bill may have inadvertently put themselves in the position of having to live with outcomes they have not thought through ( no surprise ). On one hand, if the burden falls more heavily on men ( likely outcome), it will alienate Trump’s base block of male voters, if it falls more heavily on the women, it will make the GOP white knight cuckservatives lose credentials with their female voting base.
I also see this playing out poorly in how child support calculations will be made. If alimony awards go down, child support guidelines will dictate that child support will increase. It will be a double loss for the person ( man) paying them both. At the root of the problem is the inability to reconcile the purpose of alimony & child support with the tax bill. Is it to punish, subsidize, equalize, or just generate revenue. As I see it, this bill is just about maximizing revenue for the Federal government. All other surrounding issues are being passed down to the divorce industrial/legal complex. This will not end well.
” It has gotten so bad that the parasite is now expressing concern for the host.”
It sounds more like the parasites are rebuilding the mound preemptively. “Don’t feel bad for those abusive husbands! Barbie needs her lunch money!”
“Government statistics vary. The Census Bureau says 243,000 people got alimony last year, 98 percent of them women.”
Vary by 2 percent?
So if I’m getting this straight…instead of the husband giving the wife money and then she has to pay taxes on it…Uncle Sam cuts out the middle(woman) and the husband pays directly to the government?
Because if I am reading it straight…then it goes to show the nature of the state. It’s not your safety net, women.
Eh, no. What it means is that if you are told to pay 2k a month in alimony, under the old rules that was pre-tax, so you were taxed on your income net of that, and your ex was taxed on the alimony as income to her. Under the new rules, the payment is after tax, so it’s from your net income, while the government takes its tax cut on that income beforehand due to taxing your salary and income as normal.
Since there seems to be confusion, let’s walk through a fairly simple example.
Old rules
So if you make 5k a month and pay 2k in alimony and have a blended tax rate of 35% … under the old rules, you pay 2k to wife, and then your tax is calculated on 3k, meaning government gets ~1k in taxes from you on your income left after you pay the alimony (leaving you with a net of 2k after alimony and taxes), wife gets 2k and has to pay taxes on it, presumably at a lower rate because she earns less … let’s say 20%, so govt gets 400 from her, meaning 1400 or so in total to the govt, 1600 net to the wife.
New Rules
Under the new rules, the govt taxes you on the full 5k of your income at 35%, so the govt gets $1750, your ex gets the 2k free and clear and you, after taxes and alimony, are left with 1250.
You can see from this example why they want to make the change — the government gets more money under the new rules than under the old rules, because the paying spouse has a higher income, and therefore higher marginal tax rates, and so if they tax the income on the paying spouse it gets taxed at a significantly higher rate, meaning more money for the government. This is one of the ways (albeit a minor one) that they are using to pay for the reduction in corporate tax rates and marginal tax rates for the wealthiest. So much winning!
—
Some people are speculating (Otto seems to be in this group) that because the tax rates are higher, the judges will award lower alimony based on the amount that will be left over for the payor spouse after taxes and alimony payments. That is pure speculation, and is frankly inconsistent with the attitude family court judges and magistrates have taken in the past to ANY payment obligations of payor spouses.
—
In any case, before everyone alternately freaks out over this being terrible or celebrates because they think it will make marriages more stable (lol), keep in mind that alimony is not awarded in most divorces. And where it is awarded, outside of the notorious states with mandatory lifetime alimony (like CA, MA, etc.), it’s often subject to time limits (TX) or otherwise generally limited to “rehabilitative alimony”. Also, you can control your alimony risk pretty well by not having a SAHM and having a wife who earns roughly what you earn. If you’re a 500k exec with a SAHM, well, then, yes, son, you’re gonna suffer a lot when she divorces you, but that’s your problem for arranging your life that way knowing full well what the rules are.
Haha!
It’s pretty clear to me why Congress made this change: they will collect more in taxes now. The high earning ex husband will be taxed at a higher rate than lower earning ex wife. So the government stands to collect more tax money from the alimony when done this way.
Nancy Hetrick, a certified divorce financial analyst
That such a profession even exists (and the certification proves they are numerous) is already a sign that a society is dying, and the false economies created by too much government spending are too numerous to even count.
Hey. This might be a good thing, no? It gives the man all the more incentive to adopt the scorched earth policy, vowing to burn through every single dollar of marital assets on attorney fees especially if he’s willing to go to jail, or flee the country to avoid paying even a single dime of alimony.
This was a damned curious article being written by a woman – https://www.liveabout.com/the-great-alimony-myth-1102801
Note that it starts with 2019 and later divorces. But the marriage could be entered into much earlier, under the belief that the culture was still not anti-marriage (2005? 1995?).
Plus, note that while this increases Federal revenue, 70-80% of all government spending is a transfer from men to women anyway. So it is still going to women, just different women.
In California, a $200K beta male engineer is probably in a tax bracket of 45% or more. For him, this will be brutal. Far more so than someone earning $60K in a low-cost part of Texas or Florida, where he has no state income tax, so his Federal top marginal rate is just 25% at that level.
Novaseeker,
And where it is awarded, outside of the notorious states with mandatory lifetime alimony (like CA, MA, etc.),
Note that these are also states with very high state tax rates, so the effect will be brutal to those in big cities of high tax states.
I was surprised to read that in the US, there are only 690,000 people paying alimony. Seems very low.
Novaseeker,
keep in mind that alimony is not awarded in most divorces.
This may change, now that it is more favorable for the Federal government for there to be more alimony.
Earl:
“So if I’m getting this straight…instead of the husband giving the wife money and then she has to pay taxes on it…Uncle Sam cuts out the middle(woman) and the husband pays directly to the government?”
Thanks for putting it so clearly. That’s my take too.
To the extent the division of assets between ex husband, wife and state is a zero-sum game, then yes, the government is taking a bigger cut and the ex-wife may end up with commensurately less cash ‘n prizes.
What women think is the safe, beta-provider state is just flexing its muscle. It just went out and bought a new corvette – from the shared pot – without asking the wife.
You are right. I’d love to know the stats on lump-sum versus ongoing incremental payments. Unfortunately, that information seems totally unavailable. Searches for such stuff land me here:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1596956?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
I’m guessing that at least as many men got out of incremental alimony by paying princess a huge lump-sum (borrowed, in most cases). Men like to cut loose of the bitch quick, and wimminz can’t tell a tiny piece of chocolate now from a whole bar of chocolate tomorrow, so the stats are likely much higher.
Agreed. With the astronomical divorce rates I would expect that number to be in the millions. I do wonder, though, how many women fail to report that fact to the census bureau?
“The Census Bureau says 243,000 people got alimony last year, 98 percent of them women.”
I’m actually shocked by this. I figured the number was more like 15-20 million. If true, it would appear the manosphere is exaggerating at least this form of divorce-rape.
(Mother-biased custody and the resulting egregious child-support payments being the favored form, apparently, of divorce-rape.)
Now that I’m part of the crowd, word on the street is mostly exs don’t report it. And surprise surprise, the IRS doesn’t bother to do anything about it
They are also not factoring in for alimony men who “are not / can’t pay” as well. Government stats NEVER account for the dilateral aspects of these metrics
The liveabout article was interesting in that you can see the barely suppressed rage of Cathy Meyer that lifetime alimony is being fazed out. Her attitude being since a women got to be retired and live off her husband he should have to support her forever. This seems to be the attitude of women in general that once they have their hooks in a man his resources are theirs forever. I keep thinking I’ve found the deepest depths of female entitlement but then I’m proven wrong.
Boxer, I think you’ll find most on the right already loathe Ryan and Hatch. Cruz joining them just adds another name to the list. Over the last decade, on the right, voters are trying to hold their politicians more accountable. On the left, not so much. So Ryan, Hatch and now Cruz slide to the left, where even the likes of Clinton, Warren and Sanders aren’t held accountable (they are afterall the 0.1% financially even as they pretend to be for the ‘little’ guy).
When the left finally holds the political class accountable, we’ll finally see change, because there will be nowhere left for politicians to hide. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be violent timed when that happens.
violent times* I mean.
“Now that I’m part of the crowd, word on the street is mostly exs don’t report it. And surprise surprise, the IRS doesn’t bother to do anything about it”
If that’s true, it would make a certain kind of sense to get the tax upfront, rather than chase the money from the alimony recipient.
“I keep thinking I’ve found the deepest depths of female entitlement but then I’m proven wrong.”
Great line.
“or flee the country to avoid paying even a single dime of alimony.”
Not if they confiscate your passport first, which they likely would. Also, you would have to be a serious fugitive in that case. Otherwise, the gov’t would know exactly where you are.
“I was surprised to read that in the US, there are only 690,000 people paying alimony. Seems very low.”
Lump sum payouts and alimony dressed up as child support keep those numbers low, I would think. Future lawsuits by the ex wife resulting in lump sum payouts likely also don’t count towards alimony. I think even feminists starting to see the unfairness of alimony and have simply cloaked it in different ways. A lot like how leftists saw the easy target of ‘welfare’ and have found ways to divide it into several different acronyms.
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TJC said .. If that’s true, it would make a certain kind of sense to get the tax upfront, rather than chase the money from the alimony recipient.
Once again we see Tyranny at play with the law. So what do people do .. they rationalize stealing more from the responsible people (aka th menz).
TJC .. I am not made at you or pointing fingers .. but you illustrate a great example of shifting further responsobility from th wimminz ™.
If th wimminz get Alley’Monee they should be respomsible to pay taxes on it and if they don’t the IRS (knkwing exactly how much they got) should assess the required amount.
IF th wimminz ™ want the the freedom and authority .. they must bare the responsibility.
UN-EQUAL application of the law is Tyranny.
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As for the change .. It is bad initially .. and will be good in the long-term .. how you may ask .. more men will remain single.
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Boxer said .. I’m guessing that at least as many men got out of incremental alimony by paying princess a huge lump-sum (borrowed, in most cases). Men like to cut loose of the bitch quick, and wimminz can’t tell a tiny piece of chocolate now from a whole bar of chocolate tomorrow, so the stats are likely much higher.
Great analogy at the end .. as for payouts .. these females aren’t stupid .. they train each other .. they will ask for a lump sum because they have a stud already lined up to marry which would end alimony .. or they know they can go back to court and get more money when that money (i.e. lump sum) runs out.
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Stay single my friends.
@Jew613 – Her believe that women are owed a lifetime of a “sustained lifestyle” for a few years of not working and staying at home is very, very strong. But then I suspect her income also depends on it.
It’s a pretty common sentiment – I’d dare say almost universal in American women…
I got divorced in Texas back when the Alimony was capped at 3 years max (it’s 5 years now). My ex (who never worked more than a temp job in her life) re-married 13 days after the last Alimony check ($3000 a month) cleared. Now that’s pretty common, but prepare to be disgusted by this:
I moved (long after we filed for Divorce, but just before it was final a year later) to another state for work, out of necessity as the Great Recession destroyed my local prospects and everyone in my field was out of work. Fast forward to 2016 when I was visiting my kids and somewhere that couldn’t avoid her.
She was bitching about something that happened before she remarried and I made the remark that she had all the resources needed to take of herself back then (she was getting $5,400 a month in child support plus alimony).
Spewing anger at me, she declared that because I had moved that she “unfairly and completely screwed over” because my new state (not CA or MA) had more favorable alimony laws, and loudly declared to my face, with a poke to my chest, that she “Deserved $7,000 a month, for the rest of her life” from me… Not considering that she had already REMARRIED 5 YEARS EARLIER and was currently still married…
The fantasy in her head overrode any facts or logic, and her righteous indignation in her eyes was all that mattered
That seems to be Women 101.
BTW .. as an aside ..
A lot of hoez get knocked-up by a loser .. can’t or don’t bother finding a beta provider .. because they get more money from the government (state and federal).
Then baby momma’s momma becomes daycare while she parties all day with baby daddy or other strange men. Making / clearing more tax-free money than most low 6 figure single men make.
And this is Alabama .. a supposedly deep-red-state.
So .. my solution of more single men .. means higher taxes for everyone who is responsible in their life .. at least in Alabama. Because these wimminz are gonna get preggers .. there’s money to be made off us tax-payers.
Alabama .. 1st at the alphabet and last at everything else.
So this tax bill is like an old saying .. Meet the new boss .. same as the old boss.
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FTR my comment was not based or should be construed to mean I believe alimony, is just. I do not. It should not exist .Period.I think this was more of a business decision by Congress. It’s just easier for them to get the money upfront, plus since it’s probably a higher tax rate they would get a bigger slice. Government is business. If you believe they are looking out for you, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’ll sell you real cheap…
Jew613: The liveabout article was interesting in that you can see the barely suppressed rage of Cathy Meyer that lifetime alimony is being fazed out.
I found this choice piece of female blindness: “…if we lived in a perfect world a husband/father would not be allowed, by the Family Court System to arbitrarily leave a family …”
Really? There’s an epidemic of men “arbitrarily” leaving their families? I was under the impression that women were primarily guilty of that.
I emailed Meyer about it, informing her that woman initiate 70% of all divorces. Haven’t heard back from Meyer yet.
All the more reason to have a foreign passport, if you can get one. A relative of mine has passports from 4 different countries. Both of his parents were born outside the US (different countries). He has claimed his citizenship from both.
It’s important to remember that this wasn’t a minor set of tweaks to the Tax Law. This was a pretty major “replace pages” reform. No one seems to note, in the articles, whether this was just part of a lot of other types of deductions that got wiped out.
The CNBC article seems to give away what’s up:
In 2015, about 600,000 taxpayers claimed an aggregate $12.3 billion worth of alimony-payment deductions on their Form 1040s. That’s $20k per filer, on average.
It points a lot to that Alimony only exists for a very small fraction of Men, and I’m going to bet they’re in a few Northeast states with high income & high taxes. Depending on filing status, the increase in the Standard Deduction will probably adjust to a flat effect for a number of Men in the situation. However, for those making a lot of money in a few high-tax States, it’ll be bad.
It should be noted this just aligned the tax policy between Alimony & Child Support, which is why the stories popped up. This is something that potentially hits NYC-based writers looking to land a rich husband. The Media Class Women are the ones that would be most interested in this subject.
I do have sympathy for any Man caught in the grinder, but without looking at the individual tax returns of each Man effected, it’s hard to get a good grasp of this being much of a tax burden change. Unless you’re making a lot of money in a state with high taxes. (And this doesn’t change State-based tax treatment, it needs to be noted.)
If this was a single tweak in an small bill, it could be much bigger issue, but this was part of a massive tax reform package. For a large combination of reasons, most “alimony” had already been shifted over to Child Support, so the actual amount of deducted taxes is a bit surprising. (Though I’d assume the Median payment per year is probably around $12k.)
@Dalrock
Recall that Hillary Clinton once said women have been the biggest victims of war, and nobody bat an eye and she nearly became president.
If you can say something like that and not destroy all possible existing credibility, then pretty much anything can and will be framed as hurting women more than men.
The original problem the IRS had that Congress is attempting to solve is that while virtually every man who paid alimony reported it on his taxes, only about 50% of the women receiving alimony reported on their taxes. So the other 50% apparently got away without paying any taxes on that income. Dunno how that is since the alimony payer was required to include the recipient’s SSN. Guess they’re saying the IRS wouldn’t go after the women? Well that makes sense given the current culture’s inability to hold women as accountable as men. So long story short, they decided to go after the alimony reporter for the missing taxes.
This will change negotiations a fair amount for the payer would now have to have anywhere from $1200 to $1500 of income for every $1000 paid. Some men are going to dig in their heels over this. That said, it may surprise some posters on here, but alimony is nowhere near as common as it used to be, since most women work, income can be imputed to that and alimony won’t be awarded. Seems only alimony now is for the upper middle to upper classes only. Below that, most wives work and hence they won’t get much, if any at all.
Another aspect: in some states, marriages less than 10 years are considered short term marriages and alimony if any is generally only awarded for half the length of the marriage. Hence we don’t see longer term alimony unless the marriage was over 10 years. So in most cases, the main cause of the man getting shackled long term is via child support. Consider the guy who marries and they are only married 5 years but they have two children, alimony is done after 2.5 years, but child support goes until the child is 18. In some states, that’s 21. In all states, Obamacare requires the parents to carry their kids until age 26.
As far as I know, perma-alimony is the law in a handful of states in the Northeast (MA, NY, etc.) and California. Few Trump supporters will be affected by this change in the tax code for life. More likely, a small number of wealthy opponents of Trump will pay.
Of course women will be affected the most, somehow, some way. That’s axiomatic.
This response is fascinating.
But I’m also shocked that the number of alimony recipients in the US is ONLY around 243,000 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
That simply cannot be correct.
Ute, this targets Death Cultists(D), not GOP. With 20k year in alimony both payers and recipients are most likely Democreeps. It’s a fairly small sample of Americans affected by alimony according to the statistics. As the law of unintended consequences plays out this may be a disincentive to divorce in this country. When smoking taxes were implemented it had it’s desired effect and both decreased demand for cigarettes and taxes collected from the sale of cigarettes.
honeycomb, I agree that Alimony is sexist and smart independent women should be able to provide for themselves.
EmpireHasNoClothes said ..
honeycomb, I agree that Alimony is sexist and smart independent women should be able to provide for themselves.
Yes’sir’ee .. the mere fact we now know over half of alimony receipts went unpaid to the IRS should be enough to prosecute a bold plan ..
All men who pay alimony should have third parties write the IRS to investigate their returns for massive unpaid taxes.
And as yiu have mentioned .. there should nevwr have been alimony after th wimminz ™ got no fault divorce.
EQUAL RIGHTS .. should mean just that .. if you wanna be men .. you can work like them too.
..
..
Alabama is doing away with common law marriage .. which will have no effect on marriage / divorce in the future.
But .. I am hoping that the Parental Rights bills get thru all the states or federally to eleminate child support (hopefully) and give both parents equal time with their kids (e.g. 50/50).
This might turn enough men back to a ROI that might entice them to marry once again.
How many people get alimony anyway?
Government statistics vary. The Census Bureau says 243,000 people got alimony last year, 98 percent of them women.
Given that there are about a million divorces in the US PER YEAR, that’s several million – perhaps tens of millions – divorced women who do NOT get alimony. It’s actually been pretty rare for decades. I know dozens of divorced guys who pay child support, but none pay alimony. And the children eventually grow up and those child support payments go away.
Ute1967 was spot on. When I went through the divorce industrial complex 10 years ago, nobody involved gave a hoot about the hardship alimony would impose on me. They looked at my average income over the last 10 years and simply ordered me to pay based on that average factoring in the 10 year growth rate. After the subprime meltdown my income tanked. Petitioning the court for a modification, the swine of a judge ruled that I failed to prove that my reduction in income was “permanent”, so the modification request was denied. Think about that. They first ordered me to pay based on my revenue and growth rate. Then when my income went down (precisely because it was variable) they said too bad we’re not going to change your fixed payment based on your variable revenue. They captured my income on the way up while refusing to adjust on the way down. They are utterly, completely ruthless. The only winning move is not to play. Speaking of which, and apropos of the comments recently made on this subject by Vox Day, my biggest mistake was playing along with this ridiculous charade. I should have honestly told all those involved that I simply would not subsidize the destruction of my own family. I should have quit my practice, gone to jail for contempt and then gone on a hunger strike. At a minimum, this would at least have cut off the lawyer’s ruinous fees. To this day I feel like a coward and a sell out for playing along.
It looks like I will have to research to make sure it only applies to new divorces. I am less concerned about it (personally) if so.
I negotiated my settlement with the idea of shifting the tax burden. Can anyone point me to validating that I will not be whacked with the change? I would have negotiated a lower amount if I had known it was still taxable on my part.
(We were first referred to a negotiator (I forget the term) her in Texas.)
The fact my wife gets any money from me when she blew up the marriage is ludicrous, but I have to live with it another couple of years.
I checked with my tax person about it. According to her this new rule only applies to future divorces or resettlements. Not retroactively.
So will the change give the host standing to go back to court and get the amount lowered? I’m wondering how that would work because as it stands, it sounds like women now get more because it is post tax not pre tax income.
If it made for a flood of family court appointments to get alimony and child support recalculated it could lead to a revision in the law in a number of states to settle the problem.
I doubt the women would be raising concerned unless they were about to definitely get less, and at first glance it seems like they should get more. Unless they are expecting a rash of defaults.
Although you may be right, it could just be “anything to make trump look bad”.
So… Trump & co finally got wind that there´s money to be taken from the divorced fathers. Of course it´s a better rip off for the state to let the higher earner tax the money instead of the poorer. So basically this means that alimony becomes more expensive without the women getting more. Of course they´re yelling their lungs out.
But no, they are not concerned for the host, they are just mad that Trump is taking what they see as their money – if anyone should get more, it´s them.
It´s more of a parasite competition rather than concern for the host.
But what is really cute is how media express concern for the higher earners´ exes as if they were in danger of lacking anything, you would almost get a feel they are a economically vulnerable group. The language is the same as when they speak of Bangldeshi children livig in the streets.
So… Trump & co finally got wind that there´s money to be taken from the divorced fathers.
I hope the fathers quickly adjust, so that the day of reckoning will come even quicker for these gold grabbers.
It looks like I will have to research to make sure it only applies to new divorces. I am less concerned about it (personally) if so.
The tax code change applies only to divorce decrees granted after 31 December of this year (2018). Any man currently paying alimony is “grandfathered” for tax purposes and can still deduct his payments.
I know dozens of divorced guys who pay child support, but none pay alimony.
Yes it generally comes into play where there is a SAHM situation (these are rare now as we know but more common among the wealther “who can afford it” without compromising very high lifestyle because H earns a metric ton of cash) or situations where the H earns a lot and she works but earns significantly less than W does (social worker, teacher, non profit etc). Basically it’s where the W has no income or a little income compared to the H. Where the incomes are about the same there is no alimony. And in many places it is temporary or “rehabilitative”, meaning for a few years until W can get her skills up and earn her own living (there are places that still have lifetime alimony for marriages over a certain number of years, however).
Boxer:
nearly every state will hit you with lifetime alimony, if you’ve been married even a moderate amount of time (5-10 years).
That’s not the case. To get to lifetime alimony, the law and the particular facts have to support that.
Most states do not have mandatory lifetime alimony as a matter of course and certainly not at 10 years of marriage. CA has it and that’s the only one I can think of. For most other states, if you get hit with lifetime alimony, it’s because of a lot of factors, notably the duration of the marriage and that the alimony payor was a longterm breadwinner and the payee was a longterm housewife or husband with a substantially lower income than wife.
And even if the facts and circumstances would support lifetime alimony, you can always negotiate for less. You can make a deal to pay alimony for a set time. Or you can give the spouse a higher amount of the marital assets. There are ways to negotiate it. And one way to negotiate it is that when you have a man divorcing at 50 who’s been married 22 years, he can say “my income will be gradually decreasing as I slow down to retirement” and “you get more money now with a higher percentage of the marital estate”.
Alimony is almost always temporary. Very few people get lifetime alimony and lifetime alimony is almost never mandatory, it’s discretionary based on the facts and circumstances. A 10 year marriage usually isn’t enough for lifetime alimony. Usually the circumstances supporting alimony are:
–longterm marriage (20 years or more)
–payor spouse was primary breadwinner, recipient spouse didn’t work outside the home for a long period of time (e.g. “traditional” marriage of breadwinner husband and SAHM, or very nontraditional breadwinner wife and SAHD. But note that most breadwinner wife/SAHD marriages don’t typically last more than 10-15 years; and most “breadwinner” wives are married to men who earn enough money to live on their own should that become necessary)
–payor spouse in good health; recipient spouse in poor health/unable to work for one reason or another
–All of the above, plus few to no marital assets to divide
Even if you get lifetime alimony, the obligations almost always end on the payer’s retirement. And they always end when the recipient remarries or begins long term cohabiting (6 months to a year, roughly) with a “paramour”.
Had I been paying alimony under the new plan, it would have cost me $37,500 over five years, and saved her $15,000, and the government would have pocketed the difference.
Incidentally, some time back, my state codified formulaic guidelines for judges for calculating alimony going forward that would have resulted in my paying alimony for an additional three and a half years were we to have gotten divorced after the change.
In my state, the spousal support standard is “half the difference in income, for half the length of the marriage”. I’m not sure if that’s a de facto or statutory standard – even if enshrined in law, Magistrates here have a lot of leeway. I am sure if this is enacted, savvy lawyers will argue the intent is “half the difference in income after taxes“. It’s not clear that will matter, given the leeway Magistrates have.
In my case, I pay 15% of my pre-tax income Given my age and our long marriage, I’ll be paying it until I hit retirement age. My ex makes ~70% of what I do, but most of that is tax free. I work 45 – 55 hours a week; she is medically retired. When I pointed out that we both had the same after-tax income, the magistrate, and both lawyers, essentially said “That’s not the way it works”.
Could 2018 see a “rush to divorce”.
The bloodsucking divorce lawyers seem to think so:
http://www.mpnnow.com/news/20180102/tax-law-change-could-put-rush-on-divorces-in-2018
“I’m guessing that at least as many men got out of incremental alimony by paying princess a huge lump-sum (borrowed, in most cases)”
This is true. The vast majority of divorces are resolved through a mediation process. If the family home has equity this is often given to the woman along wth other choice assets in lieu of alimony. The division of assets is usually lopsided for this reason (among others).
Nova seeker is correct that if you have a SAHM, you are screwed in terms of alimony.
The only other major mistake I see men do is put their business in their wife’s name (because of all the government incentives for female owned businesses, when you see the feminist pointing to the fact that most small businesses are started by women, understand that a huge precentage of them are a front). One guy I knew had his construction business in his wife’s name, she got the business in the divorce and promptly sold everything and ran it into the ground.
As Dalrock has pointed out it is child support that is the new basis of family formation and the major wealth transfer, and you can end up supporting children until they are 25.
Otto Lamp says, January 1, 2018 at 1:26 pm
“This will make divorce less desirable financially for both husbands and wives. This is a good thing.
I know there will be a lot of collateral damage during the transition period (mostly due to idiot judges that can’t do math), but in the long run it will benefit marriage stability.”
Ha ha ha ha ha. *wheeze* ha ha, hoo boy. You are making several mistakes here:
1) Women are rational actors and not emotion driven
2) That women are not filed with propaganda that they will receive cash and prizes (that these prizes often turn out to be less than expected does not matter)
3) That women cannot find a new sucker after divorce. Most women (over 50% admit this) have (or believe they have) a back up man ready in the wings. Again reality may not match what they believe, but belief matter most,
Finally, the judges are not idiots, they are white knights. Most men do not have sympathy for other men getting divorced and believe they have it coming.
I’ll be paying it until I hit retirement age. My ex makes ~70% of what I do, but most of that is tax free. I work 45 – 55 hours a week; she is medically retired. When I pointed out that we both had the same after-tax income, the magistrate, and both lawyers, essentially said “That’s not the way it works”.
Yep, unfortunately. It’s based on your income. Things that are not taxable income like benefits for people who are medically retired and so on do not count as income. So she is considered to have pretty much no income, I take it, since she is retired. That’s why you’re stuck with that alimony payment at 15% pretax. If she actually had salaried income of 70% of yours pre-tax, you’d be paying very little, likely.
Dear Deti:
Thanks for the correction. Quick question, relevant to Jason’s question above: do you have an opinion about the possibility of grandfather-type extensions on the tax deduction? I keep hearing about this (and it’s in this thread), but I skimmed the actual bill after it was signed and didn’t see anything concrete in the text.
This is another important point, relevant to Anon and others, who are talking about the statistical data on alimony. The fact that there are alimony laws at all make divorce settlements more generous to the wimminz, even if your particular wimminz isn’t rewarded with it. Wimminz negotiate in the shade of these principles, as it were.
And for those who don’t know him, unlike Boxer, who speculates out his ass, Deti is an actual attorney. Pay attention.
Best,
Boxer
Not everywhere has almony ended with retirement. Massachusetts is another hell-hole state for divorced men.
https://news.wgbh.org/2017/03/08/politics-government/five-years-mass-alimony-reform-remains-controversial-and-possibly
(Turns out a particular female legislature member, also a divorce attorney, nixed the retroactive bit)
I hate the phrase tax break – lefties think its all their money and some people just have laws accidentally keeping it from the governments hands.
This change is consistent with other changes in the law – I am just surprised the Republicans did not do double and remove the deduction of income men never see and then make the women pay taxes on it. Someone has to pay the taxes on the money – shame it cannot be the women.
Its also “tough and tense” negotiating why you should get money from someone for, in the modern era, no reason other than you can.
All of this also is written by rich media types worried about their divorces and friends. This does not have much impact on normal people. If a rich man has to pay the 40% on his alimony his post-alimony income are less than if the money is transferred and she pays taxes with her presumably lower tax rate. So this is a tax increase on wealthy divorced people. With people paying far less federal taxes with tax rates much more comparable it might not matter much. Unless I don’t understand which is always possible.
@Jason
There is another reason for the change you give – tax fraud is harder if you get the money up front from the payer and IRS never needs to worry about it again. The govt wants less steps in the process.
These are small changes to a small population and whats more interesting to me is how something like this even gets done. Some think tank somewhere has been advocating for this very minor change to a small group of people based on some data they have. I am curious why.
@Novaseeker
While divorce financial risks are real and severe, they are less than the cost of living in a culture so rich that one spouse can dedicate their life full-time to raising kids and then not doing that. We are lucky to live in a world where a SAHM is even possible, passing up the real benefit of a dedicated parent for your kids for the possibility of financial ruin does not seem like a good calculation. This is doubly so if you are religious and have to work constantly against the indoctrination of the schools.
I’m not afraid to get married anymore.
@ Dalrock
I feel the news articles are overly optimistic that a legal argument for lower alimony in light of this tax change will hold up in a Court (snort) of Law (snort)
It makes perfect sense for Alimony to be taxed in the hands of the woman receiving the decreed amount. Being as men still work harder, longer, and are in higher income tax brackets……there is a tax advantage to this that governments don’t like.
In Canada, alimony remains a tax deductible expense. For how long I wouldn’t hazard a guess.
However, Canada did go through a change in Child Support deductibility in May of 1997. Any Child Support order after that date became non-tax deductible to the Man, and not considered income for the woman.
The government got what they wanted, they eliminated an income splitting method for the overall (but broken) family. Women were all for it, as you might expect.
I worked in this environment prior to the changes (Attorney General’s office) and the single biggest bitch from women was the taxes they could never discipline themselves to set aside. I.E. they were too stupid to handle their financial affairs.
Child support did not come down after this change. In fact, they increased. Prior orders could be brought forth in front of a judge and demand a higher or same amount. If the judge simply reaffirmed the prior amount, the court order was AFTER the rule change…….and suddenly dear old Mom increased her income by the beneficial tax impact.
Judges themselves were piss poor at navigating the tax impact (or wantonly so) of these updated decrees.
Here’s another little turd that gets overlooked. When women get these tax-free amounts, they don’t form part of their taxable income purposes. Suddenly they will find themselves eligible for certain income based tax credits previously denied.
Similarly, Men who may have been receiving tax credits will find themselves frozen out of same once their taxable income is raised to reflect the coming changes.
My point being……..the Men involved will get no love, nor a reprieve for the sudden increased tax burden that is to be thrust upon them.
While divorce financial risks are real and severe, they are less than the cost of living in a culture so rich that one spouse can dedicate their life full-time to raising kids and then not doing that. We are lucky to live in a world where a SAHM is even possible, passing up the real benefit of a dedicated parent for your kids for the possibility of financial ruin does not seem like a good calculation. This is doubly so if you are religious and have to work constantly against the indoctrination of the schools.
Kevin —
It’s up to individual men to decide their risk appetite. If you are doing the SAHM situation and something *does* go wrong after a number of years, you’d better be so high earning that it doesn’t matter much, in my personal opinion. But that’s just my perspective. Other guys like the risk more.
If I’m reading this correctly, this means that scads of women are collecting alimony from multiple ex-husbands.
But man up and marry those sluts!!!!
So, when will western men say “Enough!”, and mean it?
Off topic, but this is another move may have unintended consequences for women.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/07/why-ibm-wants-to-hire-employees-who-dont-have-a-4-year-college-degree.html?_lrsc=cb64f118-a49b-4c7c-a825-7f477e1c05a0
Why IBM wants to hire employees who DON’T have a 4-year college degree
Having a four-year college degree is generally regarded as a necessity to score a job in tech. But as the number of tech jobs has climbed, far outpacing the number of applicants, companies like IBM have turned to talent with non-traditional educational backgrounds.
With this drastic shortage of tech workers, the company is now focusing on skills-based hiring rather than credentials to fill these roles.
“Nancy Hetrick, a certified divorce financial analyst”
This professional predator is named he trick. God’s making it pretty obvious! Too bad your nation is too cowardly to open its eyes. Or its heart.
So, when will western men say “Enough!”, and mean it?
Never will. There is an infinitely replenishing army of desert thirsty white knights who will do anything other than that.
Only thing that changes things is a reset. We never know when that will come, and it may not come for a very long time, so it’s best to focus on other personal options than waiting for men to confront the system, or for a system reset to happen.
Nah…you mean skills and merit should get you the job and not what skin color, sex, or 100,000 dollar degree you own? I always thought successful companies were the ones who could virtue signal the best.
@Kevin
I think you have it backwards. Poverty and necessity has been the driver of a stay at home parent since the beginning of time, not the wealth of country. I believe you would see a decrease in SAHP as country wealth increases. We are unlucky to live in a world where a SAHP is no longer possible, and two income families are required for middle class. The SAHP isn’t disappearing because the working parent is worried about financial ruin, it’s because the government incentivizes that SAHP to break up the family through divorce and alimony.
@Novaseeker – actually, if her income were taxable, it would not have changed my spousal support. They took into account all her income, not just the 30% or so that is taxable.
The only consolation is that I pay the support to a state agency which pays her, and reports the payments to the IRS. It’s worth the 3% surcharge to see her have to make quarterly estimated tax payments (since the agency does not withhold).
dragnet said ..
If I’m reading this correctly, this means that scads of women are collecting alimony from multiple ex-husbands.
Actually that can’t happen.
I posted here ..
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/women-hardest-hit/#comment-255842
That what we have here is th wimminz not reporting the taxable alimony as income.
The solution was to have a third party write a letter to investigate those wimminz (i.e. your ex-wife).
But .. either the IRS doesn’t care .. because they know .. or they are waiting for a complaint by a third party. You need three of these third party letters to cause an audit.
Can a woman get married in one state, separate from her husband and move to another state, live there for six months or a year or however long it takes to establish residency, and then file for divorce in that state to get a more favorable cash and prize package?
‘Ted Cruz, Orrin Hatch and Paul Ryan’
Ted Cruz cucked out on Trump, Paul Ryan proved himself in cucking out also. So no surprise to me.
“It could make tough, tense negotiations between spouses even worse…”
Well, imagine my shock!
Hey Lawyer Dude: wouldn’t it be better for spouses not to have those tense negotiations in the first place, by the female spouse pulling her head in and not filing for divorce, no-fault, in the first place?
This change to taxability/tax deductability was made in the UK in the 1980s and it only affected settlements made after the rules had changed. I do not knowe whether the IRS will continue to work with two sets of rules, but the Inland revenue does over here. That is not to say they get it right every time, butthen again which government department ever does.
With regard to the numbers of payers of alimony and the number of registered recipients, I would suggest that there is large scale tax evasion going on, but because it is mainly women doing the evasion, I do not expect to hear that the IRS will do anything about it.
Kind’a makes you think that King Henry VIII and Martin Luther were wrong and the Catholic Christians have been right about divorce all along.
God hates divorce so a mark of God’s true Church is its unwillingness to accept what God hates.
I know of a situation where that may be the case. She hasn’t hit the 6 month mark yet…but from what I read that’s how long they need to be in the state of residency before they can file for divorce.
”Kind’a makes you think that King Henry VIII and Martin Luther were wrong and the Catholic Christians have been right about divorce all along.”
I don’t think King Henry VIII and Martin Luther have the same views on divorce.
I seem to recall that Henry’s view was that his marriage to internet-bride Catherine of Aragon was in someway illegal as she had been his late brother Arthur’s fiancee (he Henry, being the spare). I mean in what way had he really consented and as we know that is the litmus test of everything. Of course after that he may be said to have been less consistent as his wives were either divorced or beheaded which is I suppose is what you do if you are not sufficiently Alpha to Game your wife into loving submission. VoxDay would surely consign Henry (in VoxDay’s taxonomy) to the status of the dreaded Gamma – going postal when he did not get his way. There goes my knighthood.
@Micha Elyi
I would agree with you, but the RCC sees the explosion in destroyed homes in the US after the 60s as progress, as justice. They just don’t call it divorce*. As the Archdioceses of Boston explains, the only problem is that the rest of the world hasn’t caught up with our
divorceannulment revolution:*Instead, the RCC prefers the term annulment. Coincidentally, before you can request an annulment you have to first get a civil divorce.
Micha Elyi
Kind’a makes you think that King Henry VIII and Martin Luther were wrong and the Catholic Christians have been right about divorce all along.
So why do US Catholics get divorced almost as much as Prots, again? You’ve never answered this before, maybe you could try this time around?
God hates divorce so a mark of God’s true Church is its unwillingness to accept what God hates
Then God hates the US branch of the Catholic church; the majority of annullments AKA “Catholic Divorces” are granted to US bishoprics. As you know full well, since it has been pointed out to you more than once.
Run along little girl, the adults are conversing. Your feeble trolling fails once again.
“New York City matrimonial lawyer Malcolm S. Taub”
“Matrimonial lawyer” — LOL
An annulment is not a ‘Catholic divorce’. It was not a valid marriage in the Church to begin with.
‘It means that a marriage that was thought to be valid civilly and canonically was in fact not valid according to Church law. A declaration of nullity does not deny that a relationship existed. It simply states that the relationship was missing something that the Church requires for a valid marriage.’
http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/annulment/index.cfm
The two theories I have when it comes to the increase in annulments in the US are:
1) People were/are truly taking shortcuts and not doing everything the Church law commanded when getting married…
or
2) Some of our SJW, libertine bishops in certain parts of the country possibly abusing the annulment process. I’m always wary about how judging things like ‘consent’ and ‘intention of the good for each other’ can be skewed.
Dear Earl:
It was a valid marriage up until one party paid 500 bucks and got the canon lawyer to write up some shit which the local bishop approved of. Then it wasn’t.
Hence the name: “Catholic divorce”. That phrase describes perfectly what it is, in name and in truth.
They aren’t abusing it. They’re using it as it was designed to be used. It’s a moneymaker through which your church probably makes its spending allowances, by bilking decent but troubled members of your tribe.
The Catholic church is not nearly as secure as you think it is. When you go on these tirades, you remind me of my Muslim friends, who laugh, and assure me that they won’t fall for the feminist tricks. “The Christians and Jews were idiots, but we’re on top of everything,” says Ali, as his 16-year old daughter slinks out the back door, to go smoke dope and have a threesome with Jethro, Quantravious, and Pedro.
Best,
Boxer
Can you name or cite an incident where that took place? That sounds like conspiracy theory or reading up on how the state courts go about doing things and then thinking canon lawyers must do the same.
The Catholic church itself is secure…a lot of Catholics aren’t as secure as they think.
Annulment is a rational and doable concept, but in practice, as Boxer has pointed out has become a joke.
The vast majority of annulments have been granted in the United States, and especially took off after the sexual revolution and no fault divorce. Money drives that.
@Boxer, preach it, brother. Those who believe annulment isn’t divorce in God’s eyes are fooling themselves, and only themselves. Certainly not fooling God.
In defense of annulment. In theory, they are for extreme cases like when one party is hiding the fact that they are married to someone else, or a mentally incapacitated person was forced to marry.
The expansion of the definition of lack of canonical form has conformed to societal norms, especially in rich countries like the US. This is to accommodate the host culture, and is why it is seen as “Catholic divorce.”
The definition of divorce and annulment are two different things. That’s not fooling anyone…that’s looking in a dictionary.
An annulment is deeming a marriage wasn’t lawfully valid to begin with.
A divorce is separating a lawful, valid marriage.
If the annulment process is really just a secret ‘divorce for profit’ scheme the bishops and lawyers have concocted…then they aren’t fooling God and they will have the same fate as Judas.
When a marriage goes before the tribunal, the assumption is supposed to be that the marriage is valid. (Not unlike the presumption of innocence supposedly afforded in our own jurisprudence). The canon lawyers duke it out in that context. One of them is the “defender of the marriage” and the other ones job is to attack it. But the burden of proof is on the latter, and outside of a very small set of circumstances, the marriage is supposed to stand.
The data in America since no-fault divorce stormed all the states is pretty damning on the tribunals.
If the couple has already received a state divorce, they are almost guaranteed to be granted the annulment. This should not be the case, but the incentives are pretty obvious.
It is common now for annulments to be granted for things like “he is an alcoholic” or accusations of abuse (neither of which reach the threshold).
Its kind of rough spot for the church, to be fair.
The consequences of standing firm on this issue would be empty pews. I have met only one Catholic priest who spoke the truth about this from his pulpit, and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
But if poor single mom Sally was left by her “dead beat” husband and she filed for divorce and then the church said “sorry, you are still married” and then further admonished her about living in sin with her new “husband” even to the point of denying them communion, well, there’s always the [fill in the blank non-sacramental faith tradition] down the street.
A guy I used to work with went through the annulment process in the church because he was already state divorced (cheating wife) and that’s basically what the church told him. I also talked with the person in the diocese who was the ‘defender of the marriage’ and he stated the process starts out going in as valid marriage until it is proven otherwise and his job was to keep the marriage together. So at least where I was at I didn’t see annulment as an easy process or a secret divorce for profit scheme.
It’s just what the data shows. Its not an anecdotal thing. I’ll have to go find it later.
This site has a lot of data
http://marysadvocates.org/research/catholic-annulment/
Dear Earl:
I can do far better; but, first, live up to your own standards. Why don’t you provide the name and home address of the poor chap you allege was refused a declaration of nullity, despite his wife admitting to cheating on him in civil court.
Have you read Dalrock’s original article, or gone to the Council of Catholic Bishop’s site? This is the part I like best.
LOL! How convenient!
The whole process is FAQ’d out in detail by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, here:
http://www.foryourmarriage.org/catholic-marriage/church-teachings/annulments/
There’s nothing secret about it, and that’s exactly what it is. The people I know who have done this nonsense have claimed they paid about 500 bucks. You have your canon lawyer submit some forms, your ex-spouse is notified, and you wait a few months before they find your “marriage was never valid in the first place”.
Again, from the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops:
Granted, not quite no-fault (you’ve got to at least make up some plausible reason for your Catholic Divorce, beyond ‘not haaaapppy’) but bing-bang easy and not too expensive, either.
Best,
Boxer
And the guy I talked about paid 500 bucks and found out his marriage was still valid in the eyes of the church. He wasn’t too happy as you would expect.
Well how else would they get the information on the process? Go to the Mormon temple or a mosque and get the forms?
You could go to a Mormon temple if you wanted. We have our own process for divorcing. In my tradition it was traditionally (lol) called a “dissolvement” – but I prefer the more-fun-just-as-accurate phrase “temple divorce.”
Like Catholics, Mormons love to divorce each other. We love it so much that, like Catholics, we made a religious sacrament out of the process. The major difference between Mormons and Catholics is that we don’t lie to ourselves, by pretending that marriages were invalid from the start due to technicality.
Best,
Boxer
So at least where I was at I didn’t see annulment as an easy process or a secret divorce for profit scheme.
You just have to be willing to say the magic words. It isn’t about the wife cheating. The magic words are something like this: “I never wanted to have kids, even before we were married, it wasn’t ever my intention” or “I never saw marriage as being permanent — we talked about it before we were married and we both saw divorce as an option”, etc. You need to show the tribunal that you lacked the consent to abide by what a Catholic marriage *requires*, and then you are annulled, because the sacrament is declared invalid due to a lack of proper consent. If you don’t agree with the rules of Catholic marriage going in, you can use that to annul your marriage — is that crazy? Yes, but it’s also the rule because it permits the Catholic church to tacitly accept divorce while hiding behind an exceptionally Jesuitical fig-leaf that there never was a marriage to begin with, because when you got married you actually thought that at some stage down the line divorce could be an option.
@earl @novaseeker Strikes me as rather an indication of the truly abysmal catechesis in the US, rather than any knock on doctrine itself. If once a week indifferent “religious education” for an hour for 5 years until confirmation at 11 followed by 19 years of Cheaster attendance could produce enough knowledge for a valid marriage, it would be amazing.
Privately I suspect 90+% are invalid due to the intention to contracept, but that could always be rectified by a covalidation by the parish priest at a later date. Most FSSP houses are quite happy to attempt that rectification after a conversion to the truth.
Off topic warning Dalrock et al. But this find was a pretty good one:
Strikes me as rather an indication of the truly abysmal catechesis in the US, rather than aqny knock on doctrine itself
I think that this cuts to the heart of the matter, not only for American Caholicism, but American Protestantism and the American “brand” of any other religion (although in my casual personal observation, Orthodox Christianity has been much less susceptible than other sects).
The late Joseph Sobran used to refer to “the Great National Religion,” a vague, watered down, uniquely American mixture of weak-sauce Judeo-Christianity, the main purpose of which is to confer a veneer of holiness upon the American secular culture. It is, de facto, the only acceptable form of “religion” in America, as doctrinal adherence to the true tenets of one’s faith shatters the “melting pot” myth and puts God above nation (can’t EVER tolerate that!). This has been the prevailing “religion” in America since colonial days and has infected every faith to establish itself on America’s shores. For proof of how thoroughly compromised ALL religious faiths are in America, as well as how thoroughly Borg-assimilated into the GNR everyone is, ask yourself this simple question: when was the last time ANY denomination of any religious faith in America stood up and declared battle against any law or social trend that directly threatened the faith or the faithful?
Exactly …
Spike, regarding that video.
In the modern world, men have been conditioned to be obsequious and deferrent to women out of the fear that one false move could offend one and thus ruin your life.
Yet we still obsess over “abusive” men and how we need to protect women from “predators.” Feminism has been the most effective ideology at disrupting the natural order of things the world has ever seen.
The amazing part is it has convinced the world that still “so much work needs to be done” to accomplish equality for women.
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@Isa
As Novaseeker explains, the RCC is teaching (via the process) that if you don’t see marriage as permanent, it isn’t. You claim the laity isn’t getting the message, but they really are. How could they not?
Novaseeker said: “You need to show the tribunal that you lacked the consent to abide by what a Catholic marriage *requires*, and then you are annulled, because the sacrament is declared invalid due to a lack of proper consent.”
Sounds much like the cases of sex where “yes” meant “yes” until one party (it always seems to be the woman) later decides that they didn’t really mean “yes”, so it is now becomes rape in her eyes and the authorities agree.
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That’s why I mentioned earlier when you start using terms like consent then judgements can be murky and taken advantage of. That word has been abused by women often to try and get rid of a bad situation.
From my Pope Benedict story:
It seems a lot of Catholics just civilally divorce and don’t even bother with annulments. Either because they know their marriage was valid and don’t go through the process…or they are lazy.
At the very least the leader of the church stated ‘I’m not haaaaaaaaaapy’ counts.
Earl,
It is similar to women crying “abuse” in a non-RCC church to get everyone on their side to gain support for their decision to divorce against Biblical principles.
The amount all females have ever directly extracted from me = $0.00. Next to retaining personal liberty, the inability of females to extort money directly from me using the government is MGTOW’s greatest benefit :).
But, of course, they still extort money from me indirectly using the government to tax me for money redirected to them via non-entitlements (e.g. welfare, etc…) and that does need to end.
Earl
An annulment is not a ‘Catholic divorce’.
Sure, Earl, and a toh-MAY-toh is not a toh-MAH-toh, either. Split hairs all you want, the reality is obvious.
@dalrock
Simply put, there is no catechisis. As in, zero, zip, nada (unless you study on your own). In my confirmation class, we spent half a class questioning if Jesus had a dog. My sister’s was hijacked by a gay boy making everything about his sexuality. I used the Baltimore catechism when I taught, so at least there was some amount of structured learning in a simple, age appropriate question and answer format.
I know for a fact my experience was not unique, and we truly would know nothing in my family without my rather obsessive researching. The ignorance of the laity may be a feature by the spirit of Vatican II clergy rather than a bug, but that goes beyond the point. Most Catholics are culturally Catholic and have a wedding mass to please Grammy Maria and because they want a fancy venue for cheap. The actual sacrament and doctrine behind it are unimportant (to perhaps 80%)
by pretending that marriages were invalid from the start due to technicality.
Like ServPro…”like it never happened.”
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