Federal Tax Research 10th Edition by Steven Gill, Gerald Whittenburg, Roby Sawyers, Debra Sanders, William Raabe

Exercise 75

Tom and Katie divorced in 2011. Under the divorce decree, Tom is required to pay alimony of $3,000 per month and child support for their daughter, Suri, of $2,000 per month. In 2013, at age 17, Suri married the multibillionaire inventor of freeandclear.com, a website that allows individuals to cleanse their social media pages of any and all unacceptable content with a few simple clicks. As a result, Suri has substantial individual wealth of her own and no longer needs the child support. Suri and Tom discussed Suri's new wealth and agreed that Tom would cease child support payments immediately. Tom has a copy of the e-mail exchange with Suri, and a reasonable reading of those e-mails would indicate that Suri agreed to the reduction. Katie did not pursue the matter with Tom because she also benefitted from Suri's wealth and did not see the need for any more child support payments, but she did continue to receive her alimony and include the monthly $3,000 as income. Tom does not have any contemporaneous documentation of Katie's acquiescence to the decision to reduce child support other than Suri informing him of her mother's agreement through a telephone conversation. The divorce decree did not contain any stipulation that if Suri married or attained substantial wealth, child support could stop. Prepare a tax memo to the files that communicates your findings concerning the effect of Tom ceasing child support payment on his ability to deduct alimony before and after Suri's marriage.